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Timing Is Everything – A Book Review

Nonviolent Communication, by Marshall Rosenberg is one of those books you see on the shelves of people who are serious about effective communication.  Everywhere.  I kept seeing it.  But when I picked it up it didn’t speak to me.  Now I know why.  What broke the ice, I think, was reading the NVC Workbook, by Lucy Leu, which was incomplete by itself but was enough to motivate me to try Marshall’s book again.

I was already mid-epiphany in my personal life – regarding noticing that when I got analytical, critical, judgmental or when I started comparing myself to others I was actually feeling vulnerable underneath – when I came across this passage:

“Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others are needing and not getting.  Thus if my partner wants more affection than I’m giving her, she is ‘needy and dependent.’  But if I want more affection than she is giving me, then she is ‘aloof and insensitive.’  If my colleague is more concerned about details than I am, he is ‘picky and compulsive.’  On the other hand, if I am more concerned about details than he is, he is ‘sloppy and disorganized.’”

That helped me solidify my epiphany and make it a regular part of my mental health maintenance.  Now, when I notice myself judging, comparing, criticizing, or analyzing, I can stop and gently ask myself: What might I be feeling vulnerable about?  Underneath all this chatter, might there be a story that wants to be told?  What, from my past, is this reminding me of?

Marshall Rosenberg is quite a revolutionary, and as it turns out, he’s an excellent writer too.  His book explains how people can communicate with one another more effectively by using a lens of compassion – turning feelings into desires and needs.  Looking back, the reason I could not access his message from the very first time I picked up the book was that I was still very confused about what my needs actually were, I was not clear enough on who I was to be in touch with what I desired, and I was completely cut off from my vulnerable emotions – that is until they built up so much that they overwhelmed me, and I lost control.

When you are at the right developmental stage, this book is a virtual jewel.  I’ve been digesting it since I finished it in March, when I was on the beach with my daughter in Cuba.  Here is another snippet:

“It is my belief that all such analyses of other human beings are tragic expressions of our own values and needs.  They are tragic because, when we express our values and needs in this form, we increase defensiveness and resistance to them among the very people whose behaviors are of concern to us.  Or, if they do agree to act in harmony with our values because they concur with our analysis of their wrongness, they will likely do so out of fear, guilt, or shame.”

When we are alienated from our needs, like many who experienced early relational trauma, we were not encouraged to have a strong sense of self, or we were shamed when we overtly expressed our desires or unpleasant feelings.  What’s tragic about this is that when we are alienated from our needs, we are deprived of what we most need to grow socially and emotionally: sustained human connection.  As Rosenberg points out, “…the more we are able to connect our feelings to our own needs, the easier it is for others to respond compassionately.”

In modern, Western society, women are particularly vulnerable to being socialized to put others first.  As Rosenberg says, “Because women are socialized to view the caretaking of others as their highest duty, they have often learned to ignore their own needs.”

Safe human relationships have been shown to be the most powerful tool for helping people overcome early relational trauma.  These relationships can be built in a therapy setting, but are just as powerful between people who have an adequate level of recovery, adequate attunement with their own feelings and needs, and the language to talk about it.

I’d like to create contexts where people can practice with others this skill of connecting feelings with needs, and communicating in ways that others are likely to have compassion for them, instead of feeling assaulted by their neediness or negativity.  This often happens to people who have unresolved early relational trauma, and when others respond to their judging, complaining, or neediness by defending, retaliating or distancing.  This sadly validates their early programming that people cannot accept them with their vulnerable emotions and backlog of unmet needs.  Validation might feel good, but as they say in Al-Anon, “Would you rather be right or happy?” Nonviolent Communication is a book that offers a framework for blasting through the early programming, and forging authentic connections between people, organizations, and nations.

“All criticism, attack, insults and judgments vanish when we focus attention on hearing the feelings and needs behind a message….behind all those messages we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated by are just individuals with unmet needs appealing to us to contribute to their well-being.”  Rosenberg believes this applies to everyone.  And his ideas are now being taught in mediation trainings all over the world.

(Former United Nations Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold) “The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is happening outside.”  Rosenberg says that “If we become skilled in giving ourselves empathy, we often experience in just a few seconds a natural release of energy which then enables us to be present with the other person.”

Rosenberg’s Four Steps to Expressing Anger

  1. Stop and do nothing except breathe.
  2. Identify the thoughts that are making us angry.
  3. Connect to the needs behind those thoughts.
  4. Express our feelings and unmet needs.

I highly recommend this book.

 

Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD  Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion. Encinitas: Puddledancer Press, 2000.

Trauma Therapist Podcast – Interview

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.

Abundance Affirmations – Take Two

RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING
(Making adjustments based on what I desire moving forward)

I choose to address my compulsions directly, and I open to guidance about how this is gracefully done.
It is safe to have plenty of time. I can have plenty of time and not get derailed in anything even close to The Devil’s Workshop. (Unless, of course, the devil is a fine playmate.)
True abundance does not always mean a full calendar, or having several things lined up to do.
My compulsions have served to keep me disconnected from my feelings. I now choose to shift my relationship with my feelings so that my natural tendency is to notice and feel them directly.
I have plenty of money and plenty of time simultaneously.
I do not have to have access to endless abundance to have simplicity and peace, though it sure seems like it could help, sometimes.
I am well supported in managing abundance so that it does not detract from the quality of my life.
I can be trusted with free, unstructured time. I am allowed to play and relax. Playing and relaxing help me reach my goals, effortlessly.
I step up and do what is needed to make wise decisions that help me feel better about my future. I own my power. I am in charge of my life.
My values and integrity stay intact as I become a conduit of great financial flow.
I release any connection between busy-ness and righteousness. That is utter nonsense.
As a fully resourced person I make a bigger impact in the world.

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.

Self-Imposed Monkhood

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:

  • To buying food in excess of what I need.
  • To buying to distract myself from feeling.
  • To buying things for others to get approval/acceptance.
  • To supporting the illusion that I’m responsible or invulnerable.
  • To keeping me rigidly stuck in my old roles of appearing “more capable.”
  • To taking care of the needs of others to my own detriment.

Not having money has forced me to slow down.  It has served me in helping to keep my life a bit simpler.

  • Fewer distractions.
  • More time with myself, my emotional life and my creative process.

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)

I choose to address my compulsions directly, and I open to guidance about how this is gracefully done.
It is safe to have plenty of money.  I can have plenty of money and stay connected to my needs, my personal limits, my essence, my values and my purpose.
I am learning that true abundance does not always mean lots of food in the refrigerator, or cooking in advance so I have plenty of leftovers.
My compulsions have served to keep me disconnected from my feelings.  I now choose to shift my relationship with my feelings and feel my emotions directly.
I can have simplicity in my life and abundant resources and income all at the same time.
I do not have to sacrifice financial abundance to have access to simplicity and peace.
I am well supported in managing abundance so that it does not detract from the quality of my life.
I can be trusted with material and financial abundance.
I will step up and do what is needed to make wise decisions that help me feel better about my financial future.
My values and integrity will stay intact as I become a conduit of great financial flow.
I release any connection between poverty and righteousness.  That is utter nonsense.
As a fully resourced person I can and will make a bigger impact in the world.
I welcome the abundance that is already mine, and I am so grateful!

Thank you!  And so it is!

It’s A Body Thing

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.

The Shoe  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX3BVdONvZA

Self Abuse and the Inner Drama Triangle: Learning to Parent Yourself Well

What is the Drama Triangle, and how does it tie in with early relational trauma and embodiment?

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.

Now available!

Fill out this brief survey if you’d like to know more.

 

Microbiome Summit 2016 – Repost

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

http://www.marthaherbert.org

·         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

http://www.doctor-natasha.com

·         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

Nourishinghope.com

·         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 – Book Review

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 – Book Review

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!