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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!

Are You Wired For Love? – Repost

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.

ISLANDS
  • Often feel intruded upon by others
  • Feel trapped, out of control in response to closeness
  • Fear too much intimacy
  • Fear being blamed
  • Don’t believe much in the value of being soothed, comforted or protected by someone else. After all, we’ve figured out how to do that for ourselves, and others can be such a bother.
  • Prefer to have control, i.e., if I withdraw first, I don’t have to fear being abandoned
WAVES
  • Fear being abandoned by a partner
  • Fear being separated from a partner
  • Experience discomfort in response to being left alone for too long
  • Feel that they are a burden
  • Elevating someone to primary attachment status makes that person dangerous
  • Overly sensitized to the anticipation of rejection
  • Often copes with this by rejecting a partner
  • Want to be tethered, but either don’t expect it in return or are unwilling to give it in return.

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:

  • A durable sense of membership and belonging
  • A consistent go-to person with whom you can relax, feel accepted, wanted, protected, and cared for
  • A consistent go-to person for comfort and immediate care
  • Satisfaction of the human longing for a safe zone where you can let your guard down
  • Knowing that you each have an advocate and an ally against hostile forces
  • The potential for synergy, that makes two greater than the sum of its parts

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):

  • Addictions and compulsions
  • Perfectionism
  • Exalting the virtues of independence and autonomy
  • Judging other people who are comfortable accepting assistance and protection
  • Judging other people as selfish when they appear to feel deserving of love and assistance
  • Judging people who do things or think differently than us
  • Exalting things such as being right, accomplishment, power, performance, money, or image over relationship

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:

  • I will never leave you (I will not abandon myself).
  • I will never purposely frighten you (I will be mindful and not create unnecessary chaos for myself).
  • When you are in distress, I will relieve you, even if I’m the one who is causing the distress
  • Our relationship is more important than my need to be right, your performance, your appearance, what other people think or want, or any other competing value.

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.

  • Take the time to re-attune after separation. If you find yourself disconnected, tense, or feeling off, check in with yourself to see if you have any pressing needs, i.e., am I thirsty, angry, triggered, tired?
  • Use body awareness to see where you are holding tension, and take steps to release it.
  • Attune to your emotional state. Becoming conscious of your emotions helps allow you to stay in the here and now, and make continual use of real-time sensory information, rather than shifting into past emotional states and essentially reliving relational or other trauma through a triggered state.  This information is readily available to you if you can stay calm enough to access it.  Simply by observing yourself, you can make assessments about your emotional state based on muscle tension, energy level, breath and voice quality.
  • Develop an up-to-date owner’s manual for your various parts. It is quite possible that a part of you is quite comfortable with the idea of meeting someone new, and another part of you is literally terrified of the prospect.  Taking some time to study these parts (or any parts you might have) and understanding what you need to do to stay connected with your larger purpose and goals, while treating each of these parts with the care and respect they deserve is a strategy that can help you stay in the here and now; to ride out a potentially overwhelming situation without needing to shut down the feelings, or to dissociate and abandon your body, and your felt sense.

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:

  • Unambiguous desire for primary partnership
  • Self knowledge about our personal relational style, and whether having a partner makes sense for us
  • Clarity about what we desire, need and expect from our partner
  • The willingness to fight. This allows the partner to experiment with and learn through engagement how to manage one’s own power, and activates the mental and emotional muscles necessary to negotiate and advocate for one’s self.
  • Ability to attune to your emotional state and to that of another person. Emotional attunement is a state of consciousness that allows you and another person to stay in the here and now during interactions so that continual use of real-time sensory information can be made, and the shifting into past emotional states and essentially reliving relational trauma through a triggered state can be avoided.  Real-time information is readily available to you if you can stay calm enough to access it.  Simply by observing yourself and the other person, you can make assessments about emotional state based on muscle tension, breath and voice quality.
More on Fighting

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).

Violence and Abuse

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:

  • Raging
  • Hitting or other forms of violence
  • Threats against the relationship
  • Threats against the person
  • Threats against others important to your partner
  • Holding on for too long and not letting go
  • Refusing to repair or make right a wrong
  • Withdrawing for periods longer than 1-2 hours
  • Being consistently unapologetic
  • Behaving habitually in an unfair or unjust manner
  • Putting ego-based interests ahead of the relationship too much of the time
  • Expressing contempt (devaluation: e.g., “you’re a moron.”)
  • Expressing disgust (loathing or repulsion; e.g., “you make me sick.”)
Touch

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.

Book Review – Developmental Trauma: The Game Changer In The Mental Health Profession – Repost

Weinhold, Barry K. & Janae B. Developmental Trauma: The Game Changer in the Mental Health Profession. Colorado Springs: CICRCL Press, 2015.

These two masters, Barry and Janae Weinhold, already had my full attention, as I found their material when I was developing Boundaries 101 and it provided a foundation for my scattered thoughts.  We are on the same wavelength in so many ways.  We are definitely hanging out in the same field of information.  In this book, they talk about how research on attachment and neuroscience is changing our approaches to mental health and they describe in detail the programs they have developed to help people, families and other systems recover from developmental trauma.  In particular they offer training to therapists and care providers, enhancing their ability to work effectively with individuals, couples and families.  In their work, the Weinholds look at the positive aspects of developmental trauma, and how it can become an asset in people’s relationships, and a force for personal and collective evolution.

I talked about developmental trauma in Boundaries 101 and I talk about it in Being in My Body (as the precursor to PTSD and dissociation).  In their book, the Weinholds describe how, in 2014, they were involved in an effort to include developmental trauma as a diagnostic category in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM V).  And that is what needs to happen.  The thing is, disorganized attachments and its effects are so common, and their implications so large, that once developmental trauma is integrated into the larger picture, the whole structure of the DSM and the profession will need to change.  Needless to say, there was a lot of resistance to including developmental trauma in the DSM, despite the fact that there is ample evidence that it is at the root of so many of the mental disorders (including PTSD, OCD, ADD, etc., not to mention chronic physical illnesses) listed in there, and there is plenty of research to support it.

But as we start talking about developmental trauma as a society, we need to start talking about children as people, and somehow recognize and acknowledge the importance of how we raise our children, and how important their first three years are.  And that is a very controversial subject these days.

Barry and Janae are unambiguous on the subject.  They feel that “the long-term effects of developmental traumas caused by childhood abuse and neglect as the single most important public health issue in this country.”  And I couldn’t agree more.

Bessel van der Kolk, one of the most famous and outspoken experts on trauma, the Weinholds say, “is calling for a massive public crusade against child maltreatment similar to the model that the anti-smoking campaign begun by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in 1982.  He said, ‘We need someone important in public life to have the courage to stand up and take a very visible stand on something like this – it has a huge impact on both science and society.’”  This is the kind of response that is called for.  In the meantime, we can work on our personal recovery, and integrate trauma awareness wherever we go.

The Weinholds have an online course called Freaked Out: How Hidden Developmental Trauma Can Disrupt Your Life and Relationships, and their website is, www.freakedoutnomore.info  Their offerings are designed to help the general public connect the dots between adverse childhood experiences and adult physical and mental health problems; to help them understand the long-term effects of hidden developmental trauma.

This is a Must-Own book for today’s competent therapists.  Get your copy on Amazon.com or on there site, here.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from this powerful, intelligent, intuitive, game-changing book:

“When parents themselves get triggered and regress, they disconnect from their children and are unavailable to help them regulate their emotions.” (Pg 19)

“The countries in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe have universal parental and maternal leave policies that are much more supportive of infants and families.  Their maternity leave periods average around 10 months and they typically provide some form of wage replacement or income supplement for both parents.” (Pg 35)

“This self-reflection (among therapists, teachers, and care providers) requires that they examine the experiences of their own early childhood and look for correlations between their personal issues with children who trigger them, and their unrecognized and unhealed developmental shock, trauma, and stress from the past.” (Pg 37)

“The way to treat psychological trauma was not through the mind but through the body.” (Pg 70)

“(Bruce) Lipton bases his biological premise on extensive research.  He draws from unified field theory and asserts that receptors on the membranes of individual cells read the ‘field’ surrounding them.  The cells’ perception of the field determines how they respond.  When the cells perceive danger, their receptors close and direct the organism into a protective mode.  When the cells perceive safety in their environment, the receptors open, and they direct the organism into a growth mode.” (Pg 105)

“Lipton’s operational model has no middle ground: cells and organisms can only be in one mode at a time.  Cells are either in a growth mode and able to give and receive information, sustenance and unconditional love; or they are in a protection mode and closed to receiving supportive information and energy.” (Pg 105)

“…(Schore) description of the mother-child relationship with quantum language such as attunement, energetic resonance and synchronization…the beating human heart generates some 2.5 watts of electrical activity with each heartbeat that creates a pulsing electromagnetic field of energy around the body.” (Pg 107)

“What children really need is a ‘time-in’ where they sit on or by you, be touched, and talked to in a calm, soothing way.  This not only helps them re-regulate their feelings, it stops the feelings of shame.

“When this happens, children realize there is nothing wrong with having these feelings and they can calm down.  Adults are much more empathetic when they understand correctly that the emotional outburst is a symptom of children needing help to re-regulate their emotions.” (Pg 176)

“Children learn to build a False Self based on what others want them to say or do, rather than focusing on what they feel inside about what they have said or done.  Parents and teachers too often use externalizing methods of praise to reward children.  It truly disconnects children from their inner experiences, causing them to grow up needing validation and approval from others.” (Pg 190)

“According to (Louise) Kaplan, the developmental replay that happens between the ages of eleven and sixteen is an opportunity to repair any developmental trauma that might have happened in early childhood.” (Pg 206)

Developmental Replay in the Teens

Prenatal11-12 yr 0 – 1 yr12 – 13 yr 1 – 2 yr13 – 14 yr 2 – 3 yr14 – 15 yr 3 – 4  yr15 – 16 yr

“…anxiety, depression and panic disorders and the freak-out episodes are NOT diseases or mental illness….these issues are caused by trauma, particularly childhood or developmental trauma…need for support and caring, and targeted tools that help clear the trauma from the nervous system and to rewire the brain.” (Pg 212)

“…relational trauma is the primary cause of the trauma, and that most of it is anchored in a child’s attachment with the mother during the first year of life….” (Pg 213)

“…all experiences of shock, trauma, or stress interfere with human development, we classify them as developmental shock, trauma, or stress.  Because all humans have experienced developmental shock, trauma, or stress that has not been recognized or healed, by definition we are all developmentally delayed – individually, systemically, and as a species.  Some of us are delayed more and some less, depending on the amount of developmental shock, trauma, or stress that we have experienced, how it was or was not addressed at the time it happened, and what we have done to heal it.” (Pg 223)

“Do snakes fear they might explode into a million pieces and disappear?  We think the primary role of teachers and therapists is to create safe containers and hold space for students and clients while they expand, split open, and reorganize themselves at a higher level of evolution.” (Pg 230)

“Clients have an inner template…that guides them towards wholeness.  The therapist’s job is to help them discover and live from this innate template….Because all human behavior represents an unconscious attempt to heal or correct something, there is always something ‘right’ about it.” (Pg 233)

“Pacing with clients leaves the power in clients’ hands and keeps the therapist in a facilitative rather than a directive role.  This self-other attunement contributes to a healing field of energy between the client and the therapist where the ‘work’ happens. Often ‘doing less is more.’” (Pg 234)

“It is possible to slow down a client’s healing process, but not to speed it up.  Hurrying clients can do two counterproductive things.  The first is skipping important developmental issues that cause them to ‘recycle.’  The second is overwhelming clients’ nervous systems with too much information too fast and re-traumatizing them.” (Pg 234)

“Abused and neglected children exhibit a variety of behaviors that can lead to any number of diagnoses.  However, the effect of early abuse and neglect on the child can be seen in several critical areas of development.  These areas include emotional regulation, behavioral regulation, attachment, neurobiology, response flexibility, a coherent integrated sense of self across time, the ability to engage in emotional attunement with significant others (empathy and emotional connectedness).  In addition, it affects self-concept, cognitive abilities and learning, and conscience development.” (Pg 238)

“The tips of human chromosomes are known as telomeres.  They serve as protective caps that shield the ends of our chromosomes each time our cells divide and the DNA gets copied.  With each cell division, the telomeres wear down over time and fray.  When telomeres fray and get too short, it causes our cells to malfunction and lose their ability to divide in integrity.  This phenomenon is now recognized as a key factor in aging.” (Pg 242)

“…research (Elissa Epel) with a study that examined telomere length in relation to self-reported Presence using a large sample of healthy, relatively low-stress women.  She and her colleagues found that greater Presence of mind was related to longer telomere length.  Conversely, more negative mind wandering – thinking about other things or wanting to be somewhere else – was related to shorter telomere length.”  (Pg 243)

“Through subtle epigenetic exchanges of information and energy between them and the container, clients are able to modify their Internal Working Model of Reality, their attachment styles, and the expression of their genes.” (Pg 243)

“Many experiences of developmental shock, trauma, and stress are caused by neglect related to energetic disconnects during the first year of life, rather than abandonment and abuse.  It is very difficult to recognize the presence of emotional, physical, spiritual, or psychological neglect because nothing happened.  Abandonment and abuse are easier to recognize and recall, because something happened.” (Pg 257)

“When two people become separate, whole, autonomous people, they no longer need to protect themselves from each other.” (Pg 279)

Imagined Debt – Repost

Have you ever been here?

Nobody ever gives me anything I want.  I do so much for others, but it never comes back.  Why do I feel so needy?  Why do I always give and never receive?

I have.  It recently occurred to me that I had a blind spot, and that blind spot involved blocking the gifts of others, because of an imagined sense of debt that came along with receiving things others actually had and wanted to give me.  I was afraid of “implications.”  I was afraid of the “obligation” to reciprocate.  In the process, I often turned down the kit and caboodle.  I unknowingly rejected what was unconditionally given by others.  All along others were interested in sharing what they had.  All along I kept my distance because of fear.  And also because I had a fixed, rigid attachment to a particular thing or a specific action being delivered in a particular way.

Then I decided I wanted to be happy more than I wanted to be in control. An underlying current of resentment, and wanting to be right about a past hurt had kept me from opening to ever needing anything from anybody again.  And I had even forgotten what had hurt me in the first place.  Still, my body held the resentment valiently in place as an armor to protect me.

With the re-awakening of my body, I realize what it has been doing for me all these years.  I appreciate the gift, and release the rest.  It is not necessary to keep anything unwanted that comes with a gift.  If I imagine strings attached, or if there are strings attached, they are not mine unless I accept them.  Any conditions that have not been spelled out are Not Real.  They are only real if the person they belong to speaks them; puts them on the table, so they can be considered.  As long as they are just lurking, they are not real.  They are imagined.  They are not part of the transaction.  We are not respecting our boundaries or the boundaries of others when we “intuit” or honor strings over the expressed intention of the giver.

If we imagine debt and accept it as our obligation along with the gift, the transaction is soured, and the gift loses its value.  It becomes instead a transaction of confusion and chaos in our lives.

Our challenge is to practice accepting openheartedly the gifts that others are giving, knowing that gifts often come in shapes and sizes that are unfamiliar to us.  Accept the gifts given to you in the spirit of generosity they were intended.  You have an opportunity to graciously take them into your heart.  Recognize them for what they are.  Recognize their inherent beauty and uniqueness.  Feel them.  Experience gratitude for the spirit of the gift and the vulnerability of the giver in the act of giving.  Do not reject them out of hand.

Here is another idea:  Other people are not my source of stuff.  The gift is actually not the item or the service at all; it is the giving of it.  Any tangible byproduct that results from the transaction is yours, and you are free to do with it what you wish.

What if the stuff of a gift were just a symbol; a token.  And the real gift, always, were the connection and the energy that moves between people?  What if the only real gifts were the 5 A’s of mutual love and personal fulfillment that David Richo talks about in his book, Daring to Trust?

Attention ● Acceptance ● Affection ● Allowing ● Appreciation

People Are Not For Comparing

I am eating ice cream off a stick, tasting the sweetness and feeling the coldness with only half of my mouth.  I put my attention on tasting with the “awake” side with double focus.  The chocolate shell is melting quickly, but I have a plate to catch it when it falls, here at my table in a small ice cream shop in Santa Tere, Guadalajara, where I can watch people walking by on the sidewalk.  The air is hot and dry.  I recall how my mouth dried so quickly when I was sitting in the dentist’s chair, under her bright light, less than an hour ago.

I am thinking about so many things.  About comparing; the energy of comparing.  What happens when I am afraid?  I analyze and judge.  For me, it’s automatic: When I am afraid, I see people in terms of their threat to me.  What I’ve recently realized is that I’ve found “safety” in being “better” in some way.  Growing up, us children divided ourselves into two groups: “the good ones,” and “the bad ones.”  At least that’s how I made sense of the world in my childhood.  Mind you, it wasn’t that I was “good” but that I was in that group because nobody knew how bad I was.  Just me.  And often staying out of harm’s way meant maintaining or nurturing this divide.  Now that I think of it, I am definitely responsible for perpetuating this idea among my siblings.

Problem is, the “safety” I achieved from this strategy wasn’t safe at all.  It might have protected me from disapproval, physical blows and contempt that my sisters received when they expressed dissent, but in terms of relating with people, it put me at a very unfortunate and decades-long disadvantage.  My already stressed-out body responded to this constant inner chatter (analyzing and comparing myself to others) by bracing, warding off confrontation, and maintaining a steady flow of stress hormones.  Judging and dividing my siblings left me with a sense of uneasiness in groups, an inability to let my guard down with people who were different from me, to feel close or to take in the goodness that other human beings have to offer, through their very essence.

Prettier, thinner, more deserving, etc.  In my adult life it has remained mostly unconscious, but it has never left me, particularly in social situations where I do not feel I have enough control.  It has been very, very present: “I am safe if I am on the right side of this divide – you over there; me over here.”  That’s how my attention was oriented.

As I gain tools, and a general understanding that judging and comparing are actually things that signal that I’m experiencing vulnerable emotions (feelings I had learned to automatically disconnect from), I’m vigorously exploring healthier alternatives.

This habit of comparing has affected all my relationships.  I’ve found safety in partners who are “good enough” to make me look good but not quite as “right” as me.  I found comfort in relationships where my opinions were the ones that “counted” (in my mind, for one reason or another).  That required – you guessed it – me feeling somehow “one up.”  I wasn’t at all confident in my ability to advocate for myself or negotiate.  And I had no concept of what it might be like to coexist peaceably alongside someone with whom I disagreed (who must be wrong, of course).

Moving through life like this did nothing but perpetuate my anxiety and fear about my place in the world.  Judging and comparing others always does this funny boomerang thing; fear of being judged and coming up short is always the result.

I did not know that I was chronically afraid, that I felt threatened by the “betterness” of other people, much less how to turn that around.

My lifestyle now offers me a time warp through which, rather than living afraid, I now Iive more consciously and at peace.  And my body, as a result, is learning to relax as my senses come back online.  I follow what gives me pleasure, choose what I desire, filled with gratitude for all that I have.  Since I live with a nervous system that is no longer on high alert, I am more aware of what there is to appreciate in this sacred moment, and in the other beings around me.

There’s a profound difference between seeing others through a lens of guardedness and anxiety and removing that lens and just allowing pure sensory information to enter, no longer needing to be “one up” somehow.  But this distinction is – more than you might imagine – a product of the nervous system.  What has happened to me in the past four years was a subtle but life-changing shift.  It has affirmed in me a deep knowing that I don’t need to pretend to be anything I’m not.  That I am safe, as perfectly imperfect as I am.  That all is well.  That regardless of what happens, I will be okay.  None of this was possible when I was constantly analyzing my safety based on how I measured up to those around me.  That kept my body tense and poised for battle.

In my new life, there is time to do my emotional work.  It is safe to feel what I feel and know what I know.  Though I am alone, I know that I am safe and have adequate support.  Alone, what I enjoy and what I want matters immensely.  I am curious about what amuses and entertains me, and it certainly varies from day to day.  And my interactions with others is based more on what I like and what leaves me feeling affirmed and inspired.

I’m thinking about the other evening that I spent with my sister, Tracy.  It was a very strange visit.  I’d had a long day.  I was returning from the lake, where I pack in a lot of socializing and play.  Back in Guadalajara with Tracy, I noticed my faculties failing me.  I literally felt “retarded,” kind of stunned, not at all able to express myself or even find simple words that I needed.  Her being four years older, there are a lot of things about Tracy that can trigger me.  But this time, while it is true that I was triggered and my body was not acting right, I did not go into an emotional flashback like I have during longer visits with her.

I had been looking forward to seeing her before she left on her trip to Texas.  Throughout our visit I was trying to understand what was happening, holding off on any self-judgment or despair about how stupid I was in comparison to her.  I was able to just notice the sluggishness of my mind.  I didn’t blame Tracy for directing her attention outward and interacting with others in her fluent Spanish from time to time as the evening wore on or for moving at a vibration that was too high/fast for me.  She was excited about her upcoming trip and her travels are always interesting to me.  Besides, it was a short enough visit, and Tracy is super kind, so I didn’t feel judged or even embarrassed, really.

As usual, my relationship with Tracy gives me so much to chew on.  Spending time with her always provides me with information that I can use to grow.  I “got through” the visit continuing to hope that I could rebound and be my fully-functioning before it was over, but I didn’t.  My brain didn’t come back online until after I left.  I did leave fully connected to my sense of humor, my curiosity, and a knowing that I would eventually recover, and that Tracy loved me unconditionally.

Among the triggers that tripped that night were:  Being the little sister.  In our family, Tracy has always been the one who reaches out for what she wants.  That hasn’t come so naturally for me.  Tracy is in full swing with her vibrant, exciting career, a career that she declared so many years ago when she went to school for journalism in her early twenties.  Tracy is many years ahead of me in terms of language acquisition (Español), so our visit threw me back to being two (when she was six) and she got real good at telling everyone what I meant, thought and wanted.  Or so I hear.  Tracy’s home here in Mexico has taken shape rapidly; a reflection of the amount of time she has lived in Mexico and the many harrowing and costly trips she has made across the border with trucks, cars and caravans.  She actually has furniture.

With my sense of humor intact, I could recognize, that evening, that there really was no competition involved here (and there never was), no one up or one down.  I could also recognize that I was not functioning at my best, and that it wasn’t her fault.  Some days I am likely to return, momentarily, to my habitual way of comparing and judging.  I apologize in advance.  But when I do, I more quickly remember that it is no more than a red flag to alert me to my own vulnerable feelings.

And as I do my emotional work, my body relaxes.  Intrinsic to this growth journey I’m on is taking responsibility for who I am, getting clearer about what’s important to me, and through staying connected with my entire system, returning again and again to conscious awareness of not just what is okay with me and what isn’t, but what I like, what I need and what I don’t.  The effect this has had on my nervous system is enormous, and that evening with Tracy gives me evidence of this.

When I am physically relaxed, novelty is the spice of life, and not a threat.  In this state of receptiveness I more readily greet the unknown with playfulness, laughter, and delight.  I don’t have to be perfect to be good enough.  Recovering from developmental trauma involves relaxing the body so that the world can be experienced as the rich and delicious place that it is.  Each of us brings our own gifts, our own essence to share in the world.  We are surrounded by inspiring, talented, brilliant and interesting people.  Not one of us more or less than the other.  Just different.  People are not for comparing.

Decolonization and my Refrigerator

Decolonization.  A great word to describe what is happening in my world today.  It’s an idea that you have to experience to “get.”  For me, it’s a newfound commitment to living within my means.  Not drawing on nonexistent resources or borrowing from the future.  And you know what?  It’s amazing.  Going through life, moment by moment, using my gut as my guide, never wandering too far from joy and pleasure in just the right measure, checking in to see what my purpose really is, as many times as it takes.

This is where it’s at folks.  It is breaking to smithereens all the ways I used to feel about the world, first and foremost that I don’t get what I want, or I don’t get the support I need because, you know what?  I do.  If I can quiet myself enough; if I can receive; if I can listen.

My refrigerator had been giving me fits.  The freezer’s been just fine, mind you, but down below, it’s more like the temperature of a root cellar.  And about a month ago I had figured out how to deal with a different problem: it was freezing everything.  So what I own is a refrigerator that is trying to make up its mind.  I know better than to try to ask some technician to look at it.  That will be an investment of very questionable value in terms of both time and money.  Instead, I get to have this experience, which as it turns out, is kind of fun.  I’m decolonizing.

I have been intimately aware of my addictive patterns around food.  I devolve down a well-worn groove from good intentions to just a little more of the comfort food, to full-on surrender to my cravings.  And I’m forced to find my way back to myself again.

When I came home to my decomposing celery and spinach I got mad.  But then I made soup.  My heart ached because I had just bought whipping cream for my tea but then I made cream of spinach soup and used the sour cream for my potatoes.  It was divine.  I froze what was left of the spinach and I went to the market looking for what would keep better in my “root cellar,” began to make more frequent trips to the market (on my bicycle), and purchasing less each time.  I also had to stay on my toes (conscious) about planning meals around what needed to be used up first.  I made smoothies out of things I’d never used before, and used my dehydrator.  And I became even more conscious about scouting out foods that were on sale or offered as surplus.  When I do this I know that I’m more likely eating what’s in season and local – at least at my neighborhood market here in Guadalajara.

This, my friends, is what it takes for me to avoid seductive patterns that offer the illusion of comfort; that lure me with their “convenience” but actually lull me into unconsciousness and addiction.

Underneath all that, I am discovering as I listen, are my unconscious fears:

  • I’m not going to have what I need.
  • Taking care of myself well is a thankless, all-consuming drudge.
  • My food needs are overwhelming and unreasonable.

Well.

Now I can see them.  Thank you Spirit.  Here is what I’m shifting that to:

  • I have what I need.
  • I am not alone in caring for myself.
  • I am well supported, though support sometimes comes in the form of change and I don’t understand it at first.
  • My needs are normal.
  • Meeting my needs is actually a lot easier than I thought.

The thing is, I need to keep my focus more on the short-term, and not extend my food planning out so far.  This is what it takes for me to come out of addiction, to follow my guidance, and live, fully embodied in the present.  I’m not sure I’m going to ever fix my refrigerator.  I may just begin seeing it as another instrument of God – slowing me down, bringing me back to myself, reconnecting me with my purpose, and helping me to live more sustainably and aware of my body’s needs and the planet.