I was recently interviewed by Harvard-trained Guy McPherson of the Trauma Therapist Podcast. I highly recommend his creative endeavor, which you can check out here. He is truly inspired, seeing that people first starting out on the road to being effective therapists can and should draw on the wisdom of others who were once beginners too.
Listen to my interview here.
RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING
(Making adjustments based on what I desire moving forward)
I welcome the abundance that is already mine, and I am so grateful!
Thank you! And so it is!
Photo borrowed from Laughing Frog Gardens. Check it out here.
I have in the past year been thinking about money – fiscal flow. It was last year about this time that the dust was beginning to settle, and I realized that the time had come to shift from spending more money than I was bringing in. Thousands of dollars of credit card debt loomed – the hard-earned badge of taking chances, and the ball and chain that symbolized my vulnerability for stepping up and helping when I am not grounded myself (No regrets. Just noticing).
My relationship with credit is one of gratitude and respect, having been the recipient of student loans and commercial credit that allowed me to get an education and the credentials needed to support myself in an honorable and dignified way, but my latest plunge into debt is the shadow side of a larger transition, and it brings into stark relief many of my previously unconscious beliefs and attitudes about abundance and money, no doubt passed down to me from my ancestors, and maybe the reverberating echoes of our shocked and traumatized poor and middle class brothers and sisters who move through life more like the living dead than their great, empowered selves.
Since I made that recent, important shift, I have been thinking about how what I’m going through might be similar to the withdrawal symptoms of a heroin addict, or an alcoholic. But I try not to get too carried away. What I have realized is that for me, pulling out of our revered middle-class rituals that have served as the “guarantor” of safety and stability, I have stepped into the unknown. The result has been a self-imposed experience of low financial flow. AND having a temporary period of self-imposed “monkhood” has helped me get more up close and personal with some of the baggage I have carried with me about money, wealth and abundance. I’ll share with you here what I’m taking away as I move forward. This is going to be an excellent year!
Self-imposed monkhood has served me in managing my compulsions:
Not having money has forced me to slow down. It has served me in helping to keep my life a bit simpler.
Not having money has “served” me in helping me to feel more righteous.
RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING
(Making adjustments based on what I desire moving forward)
Thank you! And so it is!
There’s something the body does that reflects what the nervous system does – a reflex, in response to a trigger. I’d like to explore this with you. When a person encounters a trigger, the body closes. What I seem to be noticing with myself and my clients is a popular trigger called “ALLOWING A PART OF MYSELF TO BE SEEN THAT I WASN’T SURE I WANTED TO SHARE.” Since for many of us, opening up emotionally has been so unsafe in the past, it can understandably be really frightening, and before you even know what’s happening, the body reflexively closes.
This is really important because it’s in those moments that we do connect – that we have connected without our defenses up – that the brain is re-wired. Whenever the body is guarded and only the intellect is open and engaged, no rewiring gets done. It’s just kind of the same old same old.
And so the thing that just occurred to me now is that when a person tells a story over and over again as if they hadn’t already told it to that person, they are temporarily disconnected from the memory that this actually was a shared telling; this was a valuable, precious shared event, and that the person you are telling it to would actually remember that. So you are disconnected from the experience of having shared a moment of connection and being heard together. The wires are down. It’s almost like the fact that we shared it can “disappear.” Just like that, our most powerful resources can disappear when we are triggered. The good thing is that we can learn to reconnect. Reconnecting involves being aware of and relaxing the body (including the nervous system). Don’t worry. It isn’t as hard as you might think.
You have abundant resources. They’re all around you and they are also right there in your brain. But, as you have probably seen or experienced, survivors of early relational trauma have learned to disconnect from things they feel and know. It’s part of what the body does in survival mode.
I came across a really interesting thing in a YouTube video called The Shoe. Maybe you saw it on Facebook. If you watch the body language of this kid actor, which the director catches so powerfully, you can see it for yourself. It’s a visual representation of that shift that happens: from when the boy is snarling in disgust and frustration with the broken shoe at about 1.3 and then he sees the other boy his age with new shoes. At 1.33-1.37 his body opens and you can see him shift from isolation – his own miserable, impoverished world – to a place of allowing, where he can see the things around him. He can see what is happening with other people, and empathize with their experience. In this case, this ability to empathize ultimately leads to a brand new pair of shoes and this powerful (if brief) exchange with the other boy. The boy doesn’t have the layers and layers of repeated trauma and loss that an adult can, so the shift happens readily. This shift is possible for all of us when we learn how to put down our defenses; when we learn to physically relax. When we can, we automatically reconnect with all the resources available to us in this moment now.
Interpersonal events are amazing things, and there is just so much that is communicated below the level of our conscious minds. I have been learning that if I can keep my primary focus on my own body, I can make use of the complex wiring systems that have served to make us mammals the wildly successful, sociable creatures we are. If I instead pay attention to what’s happening to you (what I can see and comprehend with my eyes), I have a much more limited and mind-oriented framework to operate from.
Paying attention to the emotional state of others has been my default, but that – thank goodness – has begun to change in the past several years. Staying with and tending to my own sensations in the moment give me much more valuable information. Here is an example. I work with clients who have triggers, naturally. And I have had moments with clients where I can see that they are suddenly triggered. Incidentally, being face to face with someone who disconnects from me emotionally, can be a trigger for me. But as I learn to manage triggers, there is more of me available to just watch, and not get carried away by the emotion and the story and the personal memory of the trigger.
I am remembering a particular time in which I am face to face with a client who has just been triggered by me, and I notice myself kind of freezing up, and I notice that I’m not able to communicate with a relaxed, open, spontaneous heart anymore. I notice that what I say or do after that just sort of comes from my head, awkwardly, which neither of us can access with the heart, and my client can’t hear anyway because they’re suddenly all closed up and protected.
In life, and in therapy, it is a good practice to reach for those moments where we are able to feel safe enough to open; those moments when we truly connect. Maybe we won’t even consciously acknowledge them when we are in them, but we can certainly look back and say, mmhm….I was open then.
This makes me remember a time when I was in grad school when I felt safe enough to open up with a particular professor. I had reached out to her due to her specialty in domestic violence. It was in a moment of trusting and hopefulness that I reached out – and from a place of newly identifying as a victim of domestic violence.
It was obvious to everyone that this professor had a great passion for teaching DV. I had reached out to her in that moment of unguardedness and shared myself, my personal interest in DV and how happy I was that she was teaching this course, and then I drew back. I hadn’t retreated or closed up consciously. But looking back, I certainly had closed myself off to further interactions with her. Maybe it was because I had shared a part of me that I was not accustomed to sharing. For whatever reason, I pulled way back, and at the end of my school experience, that professor pointed out that I had opened up to her and then closed up again.
That she had noticed it really touched me. I felt kind of disappointed in myself for closing to a potential mentor/ally/connection, but my pulling back had been a reflex, not a conscious decision; a reflex based on an unexamined trigger.
At that point I probably didn’t have the tools to stay safely connected. This was also the professor I went to at the late stages of working on my final project and broke down in her office because I needed help and she wasn’t helping me in the way that felt helpful. I didn’t even know how to ask for the help I needed except to say I had no idea how to finish a particular section of my paper/project. It was the policy piece in the realm of teen pregnancy prevention. I had been reading about policy but I had virtually no real-world information or experience from which to draw. This was my final project and I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to talk about changing legislation or influencing public policy. I didn’t know enough about government; I was clueless about how to talk about it. And she couldn’t really help me because what I “needed” was for her to write the damn thing for me. So I broke down right there in her office, and I was either crying or near tears, and I stumbled out, confused, overwhelmed, disconnected, disappointed.
I pulled through and I patched it together, but it was an excruciating moment and I never did connect again with her about this and in the process I learned something about myself that I am reflecting on now.
All this has to do with a physical reflex. It’s not something that one does to manipulate or punish another person. It’s not stubbornness or stupidity (I can’t vouch for everyone out there; people can really only know their own experience and motives). But as we learn about what is physically happening, we can more readily recover, stay in the present moment and make empowered choices. When we can do this, we can also begin to understand that vulnerable emotions are fairly universal, though the disabling and alienating impulse to hide them is virtually as universal in our modern, Western culture.
If you can identify with this, it is quite possible that you, too, have experienced such a neurological event. If you have, you are in the right place to learn more about it. Begin to notice when it happens without judgment. Notice that it passes – it always does. Do what you can to learn about how the nervous system works in trauma and under stress. Pay attention to your own experience. Eventually you can learn to recognize when it’s happening so that you are more able to stand back and observe your feelings instead of being overwhelmed or hijacked by them. One day it will even be natural to share vulnerable emotions with others in responsible, attachment-enhancing ways. Slow and steady. Gentleness and curiosity will serve you so much better in this realm than perfectionism or high expectations. And mentors and teachers are to be had if you know where to look.
The emotional work that you are being invited to do has to do with what Bessel van der Kolk and Steve Porges are talking about. It’s noticing the moments when we do feel safe enough to open and connect (with ourselves and others); it’s acknowledging those moments – the moments when you let yourself be seen and you feel that you can let your guard down and your body physically relaxes. That is when life turns around and you can operate from a place of presence, true empathy and compassion. Reach for more of those moments.
When children witness the Drama Triangle being played by their family members in childhood, and it becomes their model for relating, they miss out on opportunities to develop healthy relational skills, and real problem solving skills and this chaotic dynamic becomes the Inner Blueprint for dealing with stress. The Weinholds say that the Drama Triangle is the primary cause of childhood trauma, and I’m with them. “For children who experience or watch this dynamic, their brains file situation-specific pictures, words, thoughts and feelings related to Drama Triangle experiences. This is the core definition of Trauma.” Plenty of research is also showing that early childhood stress and unmet relational needs are the foundation for trauma in general, but I’ll talk more about that in a later post.
When an individual of any age lives in an environment that the Drama Triangle creates, the nervous system responds by flooding the system with stress hormones which effectively put the body on the ready for fight or flight. Disconnecting from one’s feelings is commonly a part of this response. And since there is no “end to the crisis” in sight (in the absence of the skills needed to exit the Drama Triangle) the body does not return to its relaxed, post-crisis state, and natural resolution to the crisis does not occur.
It takes willingness, awareness, and commitment to acquire the skills necessary to help the body return to its natural state of equilibrium. And removing the violence and chaos that the Drama Triangle creates are the important first steps.
I am so pleased to announce:
This Online Course is based on the Drama Triangle and how it can play out inside us (with the different parts of the triangle represented by different parts of us in our minds: The Victim, The Rescuer & The Persecutor). This 6-week course will break the Drama Triangle down into simple terms so that it can be more easily understood. The skills you take away are designed to help stop inner abuse and self sabotage in its tracks.
During the course, participants will learn how to replace the Drama Triangle with its magical counterpart, the Empowerment Dynamic, to help overcome early relational trauma. They will also gain a framework for better knowing when and how to trust themselves, which naturally impacts knowing when and how to safely trust other people.
Depending on your level of enrollment, you can take the course alone, receive two one-hour Skype sessions to support your work, or purchase the Deluxe Bundle which includes two one-hour personal coaching sessions and e-mail support between sessions.
The class includes a series of lessons, visual diagrams, quizzes, assignments, a sharing forum, and other materials to supplement learning, facilitate growth, heal early relational trauma and remove barriers to the forging of safe and lasting connections.
Fill out this brief survey if you’d like to know more.
Hello friends! I want to share with you some gleanings from a virtual Microbiome Summit I attended last spring. As much as I would have liked to spend more time with each speaker, other activities and obligations did not allow this, so I took advantage of the abbreviated version, and wanted to share with you what I found. As usual, what I loved about this summit was that each speaker had a personal story and a personal journey, and discovering the microbiome was a very vital and exciting part of it. Primarily, this post includes the name of the speaker, the name of the talk, and three bulleted ideas that summarize the talk. I also include a URL so you can find them yourself, online. In some cases, I added quotes and personal observations. I was doing this at the beginning, and with speakers who I found particularly interesting – though anyone who works in this field is instantly my best friend. With Deepak Chopra, I was not able to listen to the entire interview, which made me very sad, but I think you get the gist. It was amazing, and I hope this inspires you to nurture your microbiome, and look to your entire miraculous and ingeniously designed system as so much more than you ever imagined before.
| Microbiome in your Mouth – Gerry Curatola, DDS RejuvDentist.com Oral and overall health statistic: Over 80% of his patients have gum disease. The ecology of the mouth is so important. For centuries we have been following an unfortunate strategy with regard to hygiene products. For instance, we have pesticides in our toothpaste (because 100 years ago, we learned that germs were bad). In fact, the bacteria in our mouth evolved to help keep us alive. Gerry Curatola has been researching the oral microbiome for 17 years. According to him, our mouth needs to be rebalanced, not nuked. There is actually no such thing as a “bad” bacteria. Context is everything. In the right place, potentially pathogenic bacteria become health-promoting bacteria. Bacteria in the mouth help keep us alive. If we were successful in getting rid of plaque, we’d be in big trouble. We can prevent illness by balancing the oral microbiome. People with gum disease have ten times the risk of heart attack. Gum disease is the body’s #1 source of chronic low-grade inflammation.
Not realizing it’s going on. There is a silent alarm bell going off. Your body is in a continuous stress response that is awakening the immune system. Signs: · Gums bleed · Aches and pains in the body · Bad breath · Inflammatory Markers in the blood Over 80% of the American adult public have some stage of gum disease. Even if your gums are healthy you can have an unhealthy oral microbiome. If you think about it, Gerry points out, soap was invented 100 years ago by soap makers. It contains Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, a known irritant to the body. This was justified and understandable because of the recent discovery that washing hands in the hospital saved the lives of many in obstetrics. But we have not updated our ideas about the body and how it works, and there is a predominating germ phobia that has resulted in a compulsive drive to eradicate germs. In killing germs, we are disrupting a healthy microbiome and interfering with a healthy immune system. Dr. Curatola is opposed to fluorination of toothpaste and drinking water. Go to his website at revitin.com to see where he bases this opinion. Negative effects of fluoride in the body: · Lower IQ · Disruption in thyroid function We should adopt an “Organic Gardening” approach in the mouth, pruning instead of eradicating. Definitely need to discontinue using detergent-based products. Dr. Curatola says that you can improve your dental health by: 1. Alkalize Diet 2. Exercise/Fitness (running, etc) 3. Control Stress (meditate/pray, etc)
Signs of stress in the mouth: · TMJ · Grinding teeth · More cavities · Gum inflammation Flow, movement is so important for healing. This is why exercise (get the blood and lymph flowing) us so important. Also recommends Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), Vitamin C, Cell Salts (Homeopathy). Says that Florine promotes remineralization when you use it in micro-doses. In large doses, it makes teeth and bones brittle. “Bad bacteria” are just “pissed off” bacteria. They are there to protect us from dangerous foreign bacteria. Improve mouth ecology: · Prebiotic approach o CoQ10 o Vitamins (E,A,C) o Folic Acid o Selinium · Restore Homeostasis · Targeted Nutrition · Work with a Practitioner Bloating is a sign that you have a chronic problem. Teeth whitening systems can be very harmful. They can denature DNA of your cells, and lead to oral cancer. If you want to get them whitened, get them done by someone who knows what they are doing. Other things you can do to restore homeostasis in your mouth include gargling Himalayan salt (a couple teaspoons of saturated solution every morning. Strawberries can whiten your teeth. Weleda. Auromere. Clean out your medicine cabinet. Nutrition is the cornerstone. Exercise and fitness. Manage stress (balance mind, body, and spirit). |
| Kara Fitzgerald, ND A Key Player in the Microbiome: The Skin http://www.DrKaraFitzgerald.com
With a background in Nutritional Biochemistry, Kara is a Functional Medicine Practitioner. She practices integrative medicine. She says that the bacteria in our system “are probably running the show more than we are.” She spends a lot of her time treating people that the medical system can’t help, with allergic diseases. Kara finds herself working with clients around the microbiome and immunity. · Constant communication between these two · Dissolution of tolerance · Food allergies/intolerances · Genetics and epigenetics She says that things go awry, leading to allergic response, and that there is a great deal of crossover between the gut phyla and skin phyla. Problems occur when there is a breakdown in the epidermal barrier. Rashes and chronic skin diseases are very often a result of products we use. “We want to nourish and nurture our microbiome,” she says. “We want to love our microbiome. And we need to treat our skin’s microbiome the same way.” She says we should slather ourselves with probiotics. We can love the skin microbiome by: · Using dairy-free yogurt · Topical probiotics (kefir) What we take internally affects the outside. When you have a skin condition, there is some kind of dysregulation of the microbiome (dysbiosis). Eczema, fatigue, and bacterial imbalances are all symptoms of this. Kara says there is no need for the use of steroids in such situations. Probiotics she recommends for the skin include: · Bifido bacteria · Lactobacillus · Cosmoceuticals Hand eczema, she says, often has a gene influence. She recommends a probiotic wrap with a coconut oil base. You can also sprinkle a probiotic into that. Chapped lips also signals dysbiosis in the small intestine. · AmmoniaOxidizing Bacteria AOBiome.com · Stop using hygiene products (spritz, don’t shower) · Repopulate native flora · Reduce ammonia levels (a lower pH supports a healthier biome Acne and dermatitis can be treated by tending to the microbiome. Kara says that the average American showers too much, and that we aren’t exposed to dirt enough. We have become hygiene excessive. The skin microbiome protects us, our organs, systems, overall health. The Skin Microbiome · The bugs are deep in the dermal tissue, and they help regulate the immune system · They are in the adipose and the dermis · Commensal Bacteria – mutualistic (dampens immune response) · Ceramides – topical application of probiotics can reduce the signs of aging She cites a study done with baby mice, and the development of their immune systems. What they found was that there is a certain developmental stage, or a window of time, when an organism learns that the organisms around it are safe. When kids aren’t exposed to enough, their ability to tolerate things is sacrificed. We should avoid exposure to antibiotics if at all possible. Gut-Skin Connection · Whole-person care · Filaggrin (protein) mutations (genetic) · Dietary impacts · Environmental impacts Fatty Acids Fish Oil Stop eating Gluten Live in a humid environment Sometimes it’s just limited to the skin. Nothing unhealthy is going on in your gut. Progressive Lab Tests to Evaluate Microbiome · A little Lps is protective (signals tolerance) · Organic Acids · D-arabinitol – alcohol produced by candida (yeast) · D-lactate – indicates whether you can tolerate probiotics You can test for carbohydrate imbalances, celiac and other problems. |
| David Perlmutter, MD The Microbiome’s Influence on Your Brain http://www.drperlmutter.com·
Connection between inflammation and disease · How to reestablish gut lining · Dietary changes and healing the microbiome Board Certified Neurologist The information base is exploding. The microbiome plays a role in neurological function. Functional Neurology · Symptom vs disease management · Root Cause resolution practices for Alzheimer’s, ADHD, Parkinson’s Obesity, Diabetes, etc. · Alzheimer’s and Autism · Nutrition and inflammatory cascades The brain like any other organ is influenced by the body’s chemistry (our diet) Diet influences inflammation. Inflammation in the body indicates inflammation in the brain. It originates in the gut. The genesis of inflammation: · Starts in the gut · Gut permeability · Leaky gut factors · Gut bacteria enters the surrounding tissues When you go out to dinner, think about what your microbiome wants to eat. In fact, our microbiome dictate what we want to eat. The lens we see the world through is filtered by the microbiome. How are we traumatizing the microbiome? · Dramatic antibiotic overuse · Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs · Exposure to toxins Ways we can reverse or remedy this: · Fermented foods · Prebiotic Fiber o Jicama o Dandelion greens o Garlic o Onions o Asparagus o Leeks o Artichokes · Fecal transplants Butyrate improves blood brain barrier, like the gut lining. Neurological Disorders/Problems and Gut Problems are one and the same. The brain and gut are a continuous organ. Most people think of their “selves” from the neck up. We’re as much in the gut and heart as we are in the brain. |
| Martha Herbert, MD, PhD Pediatric Neurologist and Brain Development Researcher
· Interaction between your gut and brain ecology · Improving brain function and eliminating toxins · Role of lymphatic and immune systems · Linking ecosystems Dr. Herbert says that GMOs wreak havoc on the gut because of the use of herbicides and pesticides used in their cultivation. She says they punch holes in the intestinal lining, activating the immune system, causing inflammation. She says to repair the gut lining we have to cut out the GMOs and add: · High Quality Fish Oil · Vitamin D3 (take with Vitamin K) · Vitamin B Complex |
| Max Lugavere How to Improve your Neurological Health Maxlugavere.tumblr.com
· Preventing cognitive decline or “Bread Head” · Supplement and vitamin recommendations to improve brain function · The cause of growing rates of Alzheimer’s disease |
| Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD Medical Sciences in Neurology
· Dietary challenges to influence anxiety, depression, stress and brain fog · Steps to healing your gut: GAPS Diet · Recommended supplements to naturally improve mental health Dr. Natasha says that each person has unique dietary needs. And that any diet needs to be tailored to your unique needs. Also, your metabolism changes all the time, depending on so many things, including ancestry, genetic makeup, stress levels, physical demands, etc. · pH · sympathetic/parasympathetic balance · electrolyte balance · weather/season · whether you’re tired or rested How do you know? We can use our senses: · desire · smell · taste · satisfaction “What would I kill for right now?” All senses should be involved. Babies smear food on their faces, etc. This has an adaptive function. Dr. Natasha also says that we’re all addicted to foods, particularly carbohydrates. She recommends the use of: · Meat Stock · Non-starchy Vegetables (exclude vegetables from the potato family) o Yams o Leeks o Cabbage o Broccoli o Squash · Fermented foods Introduce eggs and other foods that are more difficult to digest as the body can tolerate them. Such a diet will result in marked improvements of anxiety and depression. She says that the toxicity that results from dysbiosis makes its way to the brain. She says that if you have a mental illness, this is an indicator that your brain is under autoimmune attack. She explains that depression and anxiety results from a lack of neurotransmitters, almost 100% of which are manufactured in the digestive system. 1. Serotonin – Happy Neurotransmitter 2. Dopamine – Motivational Neurotransmitter (get up and go conquer the world) 3. Gaba – Keeps us in the correct balance When digestive system isn’t healthy, it can’t produce enough neurotransmitters. Dr. Natasha says that we need to have a diet high in animal fat · Pork fat · Duck fat · Sour cream · Butter · Ghee · All animal fats |
| Julie Matthews, CNC How Beneficial Bacteria Can Help Children with Autism
· Differences in pathogenic bacteria levels in children with Autism. · Recommended foods for an individualized diet · Fundamental nutrition principles for children with autism |
| Leo Galland, MD The Allergy Solution for a Healthy Microbiome www.mdheal.org
· The difference between treating disease and treating people · The effects of inflammation on your microbiome · Role of the “healer” and “healee” in the healing process |
| Amy Myers, MD Taking Control of your Autoimmune Disorder www.amymyersmd.com
· Major myths about autoimmune disorders · Connection between mold and your overall health · Role of stress, even in the world of functional medicine |
| Deepak Chapra How Thoughts, Feelings and Environment Influence Gene Expression http://www.deepakchopra.com
· How your body is a process that can be changed through consciousness · “Speaking the language” of your cells and microbiome · Impact of emotions on your microbiome Mind and matter are inseparably one. Matter is an experience in consciousness. Where is that consciousness? · Sensation · Image · Feeling · Thoughts The entire universe is an experience in consciousness. Mind and matter are subtle modulations of consciousness (an unknown variable). Modern medicine does not rest on these ideas. Doctors in medical school studied medicine by studying dead bodies. Your body is a verb (a process of becoming). A cadaver is not the human body. Doctors end up missing the entire microbiome. 1. Your body is not a thing. It’s a process in consciousness. 2. Therefore, your body is not the same body it was a minute ago (you can’t step in the same river twice). 3. We can change the physical body through our thoughts and behaviors. 4. Statistics are misleading. They don’t tell me where an individual is. We inhabit our home with our bacteria (we share the same microbiome). Genes, he says, have consciousness/intelligence, and this has practical implications for society, for health and healing. 99% or more of the world is sub-empirical. Mind and matter are inseparably one. There is no such thing as a thing. Only activities. |
Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, by Robert Karen, PhD. Oxford University Press, 1998
Robert Karen’s book, Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, took a while to read, but what a treasure! It gives an overview and history of attachment theory. Explains in depth the destructive practices that had been adopted early in the industrial revolution, as parents increasingly were called to work outside the home and nuclear families became the norm. It connects the dots between early attachment wounds and unmet needs and patterns of relating in adulthood. Robert Karen locates himself in the material, describing himself this way: “I believe I had an anxious attachment to my mother, which was perhaps mainly ambivalent but had certain avoidant features and looked more and more avoidant as I got older.”
After having read this book, I can better understand some of my odd behaviors as a child and young adult, and my patterns with adult partners and potential partners. Why did I bite that girl in the bathroom in 4th grade? I remember chomping down hard, and I felt I could have taken it off. It wasn’t her I was mad at; I don’t even remember what she had done. But that was a terrifying, out-of-control rage I couldn’t put into words. Even as an adult, why did I suddenly feel so infuriated with my sister, Tracy, when I was dependent on her to step in and help; when she was all-out engaged in fixing the situation when my children were being abducted and I was so terrified I’d never see them again? What could explain my identification as “utterly uninterested in affection” and at the same time internally so utterly starved of physical and emotional connection and touch? Why was my response to my mother “I know,” since at least age 10, and why the unmistakable force behind it?
I can better understand how I had lived so long without a secure base, and how I learned to find comfort most reliably in being alone, since being with loved ones cost me so dearly in terms of emotional and energetic expenditure. Why I have undermined being given to “in a truly loving way… at every turn; indeed (being given to in this way) feels perversely unacceptable.”
I can better understand my disconnectedness from feelings of loss and vulnerability when it came to “close” others. Why I have never been able to use a coherent narrative to talk about what my childhood was like, what my day was like, or even about an idea I’d like to share. How I jump around without finishing my sentences, and am difficult to follow. How I have difficulty recalling much of my past. As a person recovering from intimacy disorder, I can look back over my life and notice a suspicious lack of benefitting from the highly-touted idea of companionship and comfort others seemed to be benefitting from around me; the wild vacillating between feelings of superiority to others and feeling too weak, too desperate, and too ashamed to approach anyone for love and support.
I can better understand “what went wrong.” The origins of unhealthy narcissism, and the thread it weaves into our family and others. In short, I can better understand to what I might attribute my intimacy problems, when my parents so clearly loved me and provided me with so much. And among these pages, too, I have access to the scientific data that attempt to identify what children actually need to form secure attachment with their parents, and what that even looks like.
How strange, when I read the words “the usefulness of their anger.” But, as I’ve intellectually known all along, anger has a healthy interpersonal function. Reading these words help me integrate and process so much. Included in this book are also how addiction and enmeshment fit into the attachment puzzle, and how we can approach resolution and repair. For me, there is clearly much to learn and internalize, but this book provides a grounded and comprehensive discussion of the attachment literature.
Below I include some of my very favorite quotes:
“There is another implication here, too, perhaps especially for the ambivalent child, whose hurt and rage and hatred are so volatile and so quickly unmanageable: He never develops the sense that mom is there to contain his overwhelming emotions; that he can have a tantrum; that he can hate her and feel as if he and mom are through, but that she will be soothing and convey the sense that the tantrum will soon pass without causing permanent damage and that even his wish to annihilate her will not have devastating consequences. In other words, even if his extreme negative feelings are too much for him, they are not too much for her; she can (in Winnicott’s words) “hold” them, and through his relationship with her he will learn to manage them one day himself.” (Pg 222)
And this: “He doesn’t feel he can be openly angry with her, despite the fact that anger, according to Bowlby, is the natural response when a child’s attachment needs are thwarted. Experience has taught him that his anger will only cause her to become more rejecting. And so he has learned to turn himself off. At the slightest hint of pain or disappointment, he shuts down his attachment system and experiences himself as having no need for love. Unlike the ambivalent child, whose attachment antennae are always up and receiving and who seems to have no defenses to ward off painful emotions, the avoidant child, Main believes, has made himself deaf to attachment related signals, whether they are coming from within himself or from someone else. He avoids any situation and perhaps any topic that has the potential for activating his attachment needs.”
Even later on, as a child who seems to have accepted life on the edge of human connectedness, who seems to many observers to prefer detachment, the prospect of further rejection is too terrible to risk. The predominantly avoidant child cannot be warmly affectionate with his mother or go to her when in need. But by keeping his attachment system dampened, he is at least able to stay near her without risking more pain or ruining the connection with his disappointment and anger. Thus, despite appearances, the strategy of the avoidant child still seems to serve the purpose of preserving proximity. Psychologically, he is firmly in his mother’s orbit, his thought, feeling, and behavior shaped by the claims of that relationship, but, like Jupiter or Uranus, he abides at a distance that affords him little warmth (Pg 224).
Karen touches on how in our society secure attachment is more the exception than the rule, and how motherhood, as we think of it, is not the best explanation, but rather modern Western society’s growing individualism and the pressures of achievement at the expense of connection.
And as I suspected, he says that there is hope; successfully parenting one’s children, being in partnership with an emotionally healthy adult and effective therapy can all repair anxious attachment and heal attachment wounds. Read more gleanings from this great book here, or get a copy for yourself at Amazon.com.
Closer Than You Think, by Trina Brunk is a practical guide to knowing one’s self and dealing with a whole host of existential questions that come with living as humans in these times. She writes with clarity, wisdom and flow, telling the truth about intimacy and our relationship with the beloved.
But besides being practical, and serving as a guide, this lovely piece is a song – the soundtrack to the soul’s coming back into the body, after a lifetime of exile – and finally learning to stay there. Enjoy this quote:
The skills to cultivate are not self-denial and heroism, but depth of presence, patience, and staying connected in the face of suffering, in the face of accepting that we can’t always make it better for those who suffer.
The magic and directness of this book told my story, and I suspect it will tell pieces of yours as well, in a way you have not heard it before. It connected me more firmly with the comfort that is available to all of us, in the form of higher and often less apparent forms of guidance, assistance, and unconditional love.
Chapter 6 made me weep, but first it invited me to read it twice more. Trina’s book, Closer Than You Think, is a wild, exhilarating ride. It will have you holding on to your seat. So. Much. Fun.
Buy her book here!
Various similarities stand out among happy, successful couples. These things are reflected in great literature and are assumed to be what normal relationships are made of. Happy couples regard their unions with mutuality, deep commitment, kindness, and respect. The culture they create together is playful, safe and nourishing. In his important book, Wired For Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship, Stan Tatkin refers to healthy attachment as a tether. He says, “Partners who create and maintain a tether to one another experience more personal safety and security, have more energy, take more risks and experience overall less stress than couples who do not.”
This tethering is the idea I’d like to talk about first, here, as the primary connection or bond that can be created between partners. In his book, Tatkin describes what he calls a “couple bubble,” in which a couple can agree to certain principles which guide their attitudes, behaviors and priorities, and actually allow them to “build synergy in [their] relationships, such that [they] are able to operate together in ways that are greater than if [they] each lived as essentially separate individuals.”
While it’s hard to argue the advantages of such a theoretical safe haven, my concern about such an agreement is that so many individuals who have experienced relational trauma 1) do not bring their full, embodied selves to the relationship because they do not know how, and 2) do not have the social or emotional development necessary to agree on the principles and comport themselves accordingly. One need not look far to see the relationships that create more stress than they relieve; that leave their members doubting their value, feeling unsure, unsafe, and unlovable. The elusive bond is not experienced, and the mental constructs that support it cannot be held in place. The couples who find themselves in this unfortunate situation match or mirror one another in their unpreparedness; neither of them can understand what is actually going on, and so it is beyond their capability to support one another and create this safe bubble. It goes without saying that the environment of these unions is anything but safe.
In this important book, Stan Tatkin distinguishes between various attachment styles, which can describe the different kinds of dances people engage in in their relationships. ANCHORS, he says, are securely attached. They readily attach and are able to navigate healthy relationships. Characteristics of the two different insecurely or anxiously attached styles are bulleted below. See if either of these styles describes you.
As even Tatkin points out, to date there is no evidence that being in relationship is inherently better than being single. For those of us who are “islands” or “waves,” and being in relationship is actually more stressful than not, it is probable that the couple bubble is not our best option. We’ll look at how we might use certain pieces of the idea, however, and implement them in our other relationships so as to achieve some of the benefits that lifelong partnership provides, but not to us – yet.
I’m not denying that there is great benefit to be had in engaging the muscles that are required to maintain a couple bubble. People universally feel and act on the need to be tethered, and this could be where your greatest potential for growth lies. And I’ll submit, as Tatkin points out, if we do not experience the need to be in an exclusive relationship when we are generative and bodily fit, the need to be dependent on at least one other person becomes more obvious and pressing as we near the end of life. But for others, remaining single, at least for a time, may be their potential for greatest satisfaction and growth.
For many of us, the hard-to-ignore drive to pair up seems to have a biological component, and in many ways, social forces compel us, as well, to be in exclusive, partnered relationships. The enticement is obvious. The benefits of being part of a well-bonded partnership include:
For those of you who are already in committed relationships, by all means, read Stan Tatkin’s book, Wired for Love, and create a couple bubble. Working toward this kind of relationship has the potential for profound healing and growth, even if it is never fully achieved.
But people have unique needs when it comes to safety. What many of us could benefit from understanding, at a deeper level, is that our relationships in adulthood are completely elective. And it is up to us to decide what works for us. If we have tried, and have not experienced safety and comfort in intimate relationships, it is okay to admit that. And it is okay to change up the strategy.
Maybe for some of you out there, the idea of intimacy as a trigger is a new one. If this is the case for you, it is important to become aware of any strategies you may have unconsciously employed to protect yourself from getting too close. Whether growing in your capacity to experience intimacy with another is your goal, or you just want to become more connected with your fully embodied self and your heart’s desires, self acceptance is the path. Accepting yourself exactly where you are is the crucial first step. What follows is a list of the covert strategies to avoid intimacy I have encountered in myself and through my work with clients (they are strategies because they are used to hide or distract us from our fear, i.e., fear of dependency or vulnerability):
I propose that those of us who have been relationally challenged take Tatkin’s idea of a couple bubble and use it as a version of our own personal boundary.[1] Inside this personal boundary, we can commit to forming a safe and reliable partnership with ourselves. In all the world, we are the one person we know who will be right there with us when we are scared, in pain or excited. But we have to make the decision to be there for and support ourselves. Then, with the power and wisdom of our most evolved self, we can agree to work toward an internal culture of safety and comfort. The language we can adopt might look like this:
In Tatkin’s bubble, the emphasis is less about helping yourself and more about helping your partner. In this (intrapersonal) version of the bubble, the emphasis is on being sensitive to the parts of you that have been chronically dissociated, or the parts that you have kept pressed out of awareness. When you have a more holistic relationship with yourself, you will learn to benefit from the wisdom, vision and gifts of these parts that you have been dismissing. In this way, not only will these formerly exiled parts be accepted and cared for, but they will help you understand your needs and make them easier to meet.
Everyone experiences stress in a different way, Tatkin explains. He recommends studying your partner and knowing the three or four things that make him or her feel bad, so you can better care for your partner. I propose that we invest the time necessary to know ourselves this well. Study yourself to understand the three or four things that make you feel bad. And then do something about it. Taking this just a short step further, we can actually work toward reducing or eliminating these four things through effective therapy, journaling, or good self care.
“It’s kind of like running a three-legged race,” Tatkin says. “If one person falls, the other can’t go anywhere. So you want to work as a team and hold each other up.” When we throw our body, or “unacceptable” parts of us under the bus, we end up paralyzed, malfunctioning and stymied. That’s why it’s important for us to include our bodies in the conversation and be compassionate with all our parts as we learn about their needs and work toward full integration.
The safety zone, or couple bubble Tatkin helps couples develop to ensure safety in their relationship is a “mutually constructed membrane cocoon, or womb that holds a couple together and protects each partner from outside elements.” Anyone can benefit from developing a sense of committed connectedness with themselves. It is my opinion that this is a necessary prerequisite to experiencing satisfying long-term relationships outside of us. Here are a few things that need to happen to keep an “intrapersonal bubble” healthy and intact.
As an insecurely attached child, I learned it was safer not to trust, and so my needs for belonging, safety, and support were not well met. As an adult, I’ve found the idea of allowing another person to earn my respect, trust, and affection over time extremely seductive. And through much trial and error, I have learned how important it is to stay conscious and connected to my felt sense, to pay attention to my physical responses to people and situations, and to refuse to turn a blind eye to things that are not acceptable to me. I have learned to catch myself when I inadvertently hand my power over to another person, to re-member my power, and choose again. I am learning to separate the seduction of a vague or unrealistic promise from the steady groundedness of my own felt sense, and to take great pleasure in knowing that this is what home and safety is for me.
Another question Tatkin raises is whether it is possible to love yourself before someone loves you. He points out that we learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because someone has taken care of us. Self-esteem and self-worth, he says, are developed through our contact with other people. He is correct. But it is not always from inside a couple relationship that we can get these things. In fact, under certain circumstances, those partner relationships are so unsafe that the overall effect is extreme damage to the self-esteem and self-worth, in which case, we get it where we can, whether it be from authors of self-help books, the Internet, literature or less intimate friendships. But get it we must, until healthy relating is a norm rather than that elusive panacea that continually escapes us.
Whether we can benefit from being in an exclusive relationship is not always an easy decision to make. For some individuals, remaining single is the best option because they are wired in a way that makes committed relationships way too stressful. What keeps people trying is the hope that experience and healing can change such wiring so that the individual can benefit from the safety and comfort of a committed union.
Here is my current checklist for relationship readiness:
Tatkin quote: “Couples who are in it for the long haul know how to play and fight well, remain fearlessly confident in the resilience of their relationship, and don’t try to avoid conflict.” Tatkin says that while self-interests are a necessary given, they exist as part of the greater good of the relationship, such that, “when a fight occurs, nobody loses and everybody wins.”
Smart fighting, Tatkin says, is “about wrestling with your partner, engaging without hesitation or avoidance, and at the same time being willing to relax your own positon. You go back and forth with each other, until the two of you come up with something that’s good for both of you. You take what you each bring to the table and, with it, create something new that provides mutual relief and satisfaction.”
Emerging from a life marked by relational trauma, we each have our automatic response: the one that worked for us when we were young. For me it was freeze and eventual flight. Having defaulted to the freeze response so automatically, I missed out on the opportunity to experiment with and develop the other three possible responses that would have provided me with an effective fight reflex, that might have allowed me to maintain equilibrium in my relationships (the other stress responses include the cry for help, fight, and flight).
John Gottman, of the Gottman Institute and Stan Tatkin agree that contempt is one of the biggest threats to relationships. Contempt includes expression of disgust, disrespect, condescension, and sarcasm. These attitudes, when directed toward the self, threaten an individual’s self-esteem and sense of self worth and severely undermine an individual’s interactions with intimate others. Whether you want to heal your relational trauma from childhood or nurture a deep and authentic relationship with another person, you owe it to yourself to immediately eliminate all threatening behavior. Think about this next list in terms of how you treat yourself (in a stressful situation) and past unsuccessful relationships. Think also about relationships you witnessed as you were growing up. Threatening behavior includes:
Finally, lack of physical contact contributes to actual, measurable health problems. In a study of baby rhesus monkeys, back in 1975, James Prescott found a stronger drive for physical comfort than for food. These needs are the same for people, and they continue into adulthood. Directly and consistently addressing one’s need for touch is an important way to clear away the fog of the seduction of pairing off before one is actually ready. And if one is aware, he or she can take steps to meet this physical need. According to Tatkin, a minimum of 10 minutes of close physical contact every day can make a measurable difference when it comes to stress management. If you are not partnered, you can absolutely benefit from cuddling with yourself, or even cradling yourself as you would a baby. Hugging, holding or being held, dancing, exercises such as yoga and tai chi, being given or receiving a massage, and so on are all ways you can nurture and care for your precious body and let it know you appreciate it. Notice the effect any amount of physical touch and conscious, loving attention has on your level of stress and on your physical health. If you can slow down enough, you will notice that such care and indulgence is not only enjoyable, but that it also serves to help your body heal, and as a preventive means to reduce the effects of stress and maintain your health.
In case you were wondering about the re-posts, I recently migrated my blog, and in the process lost a lot of material. I’m going back to reconstruct the articles that seem relevant. This one is from July 4, 2016. thank you for your interest!
[1] I teach a 5-week class on boundaries called Boundaries 101: Learning to Recognize, Honor and Communicate Your Personal Limits. You can get your copy of the study guide here.
