gwynn, Author at Gwynn Raimondi, MA, LMFTA

On Safeness, Stabilization, and Self-Care :: Shifting from Overwhelm to Safeness & Stabilization

April 19, 2018 By gwynn

…repeated trauma in childhood forms and deforms the personality. The child trapped in an abusive environment is faced with formidable tasks of adaptation. She must find a way to preserve a sense of trust in people who are untrustworthy, safety in a situation that is unsafe, control in a situation that is terrifyingly unpredictable, power in a situation of helplessness. Unable to care for or protect herself, she must compensate for the failures of adult care and protection with the only means at her disposal, an immature system of psychological defenses.
~Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.
~Bessel A. van der Kolk

For those of us who live with trauma, and are in a state of constant feelings of overwhelm (thanks to being in that fight/flight/freeze response), the idea that we can find a sense of calm, safeness, and groundedness can feel incredibly foreign, if not impossible. Many of us have bought into the narrative of “this is just the way I am” or worse, that we are broken and can’t be fixed.

I understand. I’ve been there. When we are in that constant state of overwhelm, and especially when we are deep in it, we can’t see a way out. What I mean is, we literally cannot imagine other ways of being – our brain will not allow it. When we are in the fight-flight-freeze state our ability to be creative, imaginative, or problem solving oriented simply isn’t there, that part of our brain isn’t online, only the part of our brain focused on immediate survival is.

I’m writing all this to say – it is not your fault that you aren’t able to see a way out. It is how we as a species are made.

And because we ourselves are unable to see that way out, we need our outside resources to help us find ways to learning to calm our systems, learn about feeling that sense of safeness, and find our ways to our own center and ground.

For me, I had a few outside resources to help me find my way out of overwhelming and crushing anxiety, depression, and being in a constant state of feeling highly triggered. One was my therapist, another my husband, and also a couple good friends.

But my true motivation to do this work was, and is, my daughter. I wanted to be a different mom for her. I didn’t want to be yelling all the time. I wanted to be able to sit with her loudness and not feel overwhelmed by it. I wanted to be able to hold space for her big emotions (quite a feat since I couldn’t hold space for my own). I wanted to be present with her, to have fun with her, to not constantly be looking for distractions from the here and now.

Where the journey truly began for me, even after literally decades of talk-therapy, was in learning how to self-soothe and self-regulate my system in non-harmful ways.

Once I began to learn about self-regulation, through various body centered mindfulness approaches, my life oh-so-slowly began to change. But it did begin to change. In time my automatic reactions (yelling) to triggers and feelings of overwhelm became a little less automatic. I began to learn to anticipate by listening to my body when I was beginning to move into that state of extreme overwhelm and could distract myself, and then in time I was able to incorporate exercises to actually calm my system in the moment without distraction or dissociation. In even more time, I adopted and developed my own practices to help regulate my system even when it wasn’t triggered to help bring my base-line state back down and out of constant fight-flight-freeze.

After I gained the tools to self-regulate, I began the journey of connecting to my boundaries and reclaiming my body and deeply learning where I actually end and another begins. Eventually I found my way to centering and grounding and then acknowledging my resources.

Then, and only then, was I in a place to truly begin my own trauma processing through somatic therapy.

My own journey has been literally decades long in some ways, and yet the real work of learning to self-regulate and come into my body is something I truly embarked on in the last eight years. And the last two years have been when my own personal trauma processing has actually (finally) been occurring and I have developed my inner sense of safeness, peace, and groundedness and my ability to be present in the moment, in my environment, in relationship with another, and within myself (all at once!).

All of my individual clients as well as most of the folks who participate in my online programs, have been on similar journeys. Most have had years of talk therapy, some of have had some experience with somatic therapies or approaches. Each step along the way a building block to help them prepare for this deeper body-centered trauma processing work.

We come to this work in our own ways. And rarely, if ever, is it a direct path from point A (traumatic event(s)) to point ZZZZ (trauma processing). It takes time, patience, bravery, and curiosity to do this work. And it also requires that we have the tools to self-regulate, and that we use those tools when we need them.

This work can feel so overwhelming (and perhaps more so because we are already in a constant state of overwhelm). Because of this, I feel it is vitally important for us to approach it in small steps, at our own pace, and always where we start is learning to self-soothe, self-regulate, and develop our own rituals and practices of self-care.

The only way we can move through any of this work is at our own pace. It can never be forced. And I deeply believe that our very first steps are learning to self-regulate and calm our nervous system, connecting to our boundaries, and finding our ways to center and ground, and all of those are acts of self-care.

I talk more about all of this in the 8-minute video below:

This essay series is to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the spring program Trauma Informed Embodiment™ : Basics. We begin May 1. You can learn more here.

You can find the other essays in this series at the links below:

On Safeness, Stabilization, & Self Care :: Definitions

Self Regulation as Self Care

Shifting from Overwhelm to Safeness & Stabilization (this essay)

On Safeness, Stabilization, & Self Care :: Self Regulation as Self Care

April 12, 2018 By gwynn

When we self-regulate well, we are better able to control the trajectory of our emotional lives and resulting actions based on our values and sense of purpose.

~ Amy Leigh Mercree, A Little Bit of Meditation: An Introduction to Mindfulness

Self regulation is, quite simply, the ability to regulate our Self. This includes our ability to soothe and regulate our nervous systems and our emotional states.

Regulating is not stuffing down, ignoring, or dissociating.

Regulation allows us to stay present, to tolerate uncomfortable feelings (sensations and emotions) and situations.

Regulation is about learning how to titrate our emotions, to recognize when we are at the very early stages of moving into overwhelm, and utilizing tools to help calm and soothe ourselves in ways that are not harmful either immediately or in the long term.

Knowing how to self-regulate is a vital tool to have when we are in a crisis situation, and to utilize long after the crisis is over so the trauma or pain of the even doesn’t get stuck in us.

Being able to self-regulate and self-soothe is part of our ability to be resilient to chaotic and traumatic events in our lives.

Most of us who had chaotic childhoods didn’t learn how to self-regulate in a way that would be beneficial for us long term. Most of us learned how to dissociate and are pretty darn good at it. Most of us learned how to stuff down our feelings (again, bodily sensations and emotions) and to not experience them or allow them to be expressed. For most of us, our caregivers didn’t model self-regulation in any truly beneficial ways.

Because we all carry so many generations of trauma within us, I believe it is safe to say that most of our ancestors didn’t know how to self-soothe either, at least not once became “civilized”.

Our inability to self-regulate, our not learning it as children, is not our fault. However, I deeply believe it is our responsibility to our Self and to our loved ones to learn how to do so.

When we learn to self-regulate, we are offering nurturing and care to our Self. We are showing love to our Self. We are showing our Self that we matter and that we don’t have to go into overwhelm.

Self-regulation also helps with our relationships. It allows us to become present in the moment, as well as learn to tolerate uncomfortable conversations and situations with those we care most about. It helps prevent us from “flying off the handle” or “losing our shit.” It is a tool that helps to experience our feelings without becoming overwhelmed by them and losing connection to our frontal lobes.

We can self-regulate in a variety of ways. All of the Nervous System Soothing Exercises I offer in your weekly love letter are one way to learn how to self-soothe and self-regulate. Being in nature is another. Moving our bodies. Creative expression (painting, writing, sculpting, coloring, drawing in sand, etc). For some people having a glass of wine or a cup of herbal tea. Seeing our therapists regularly. Playing or listening to music or singing or humming. Cleaning (one of my personal favorites!). Physical contact with another person, sexually or non-sexually (also known as co-regulation). Weekly body work of some type (massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, etc). These are just a few ways, there are many, many more.

I recommend that we all have multiple ways to self-soothe and self-regulate ourselves. I also suggest we have daily (or semi-daily) practices or rituals that help to calm ourselves and dissipate the stress we experience throughout the day so that it doesn’t build up and turn into overwhelm.

It is vital to our own care that we find these ways to calm our nervous systems, and to learn to not be in a constant state of overwhelm – it is vital for our physical health, for our mental health, and for our relational health.

This work is not always easy or glamorous or fun. In fact I would argue it is mostly hard, messy, and often daunting.

And.

As with learning anything new, any new way of caring for ourselves and being in the world, the more we practice, the better we get at it and the less hard, messy and daunting it becomes.

I talk more about all of this in the 9-minute video below.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the spring program Trauma Informed Embodiment™ : Basics. We begin May 1. You can learn more here.

This essay is the first in a three part series I have written exploring the ideas of safeness, stabilization, and self-care.. I hope you find it helpful and informative. To read the other essays in this series, click the links below:

Definitions

Self Regulation & Self Care (this essay)

Shifting from Overwhelm to Safeness & Stabilization

On Safeness, Stabilization, & Self Care :: Definitions

April 5, 2018 By gwynn

Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.

~Fred Rogers

Welcome to my new educational essay series On Safeness, Stabilization, & Self Care. Over the next three weeks I’ll be talking about these ideas, what they are, why they are important, and how they relate to our trauma processing work.

I believe it is important to start with defining what exactly I am talking about, so this is where we start. These are my own definitions (formed and influenced by my education, my clinical work, and my life), and while there are other therapists who would agree with these definitions and who use this same language, others may not. I don’t believe there is only one way to define these ideas, however so that you can understand what I mean when I use these terms, I’m sharing these definitions.

Safeness

Safeness is not the same as safety. Safety is an outer state, more of an absolute state (we are either physically safe or we are not), whereas safeness is an inner state of being and feeling. Safeness is a way of feeling (sensations & emotions) and sensing internally.

There are three aspects to our sense of safeness: safeness in our environment, in our self/body, in relationship with the person(s) who is (are) in the room with us.

Having a sense of safeness in our environment means that we can feel calm and at ease in the space we are in. It is knowing we aren’t likely to fall through some hidden hole in the floor, that the roof over us will protect us from the elements, etc. It is an inner knowing that we are okay in the physical space we are in and that no harm will come to us..

Our sense of safeness within our Self (including in our body) is about trusting our Self (including our body). It means that if something dangerous should crop up, our bodies know what to do and how to respond. It is trusting that “gut feeling” and trusting that we will not only hear it but also honor it. It means trusting that we will make the right (conscious intentional or automatic depending on the circumstances) decision for that moment. It is also about feeling good within our own skin.

The idea of our sense of safeness in relationship can be a bit trickier, in part because for many of us the idea of a “safe relationship” is confusing. We may think that to be in a safe relationship means that the other person will never ever cause us emotional harm. Here’s a thing though, we are all human. Which means the people we are in relationship are human, with their own traumas, their own conditioning, and their own unconscious motivations. Which means, other people, given enough time, will cause us some emotional pain.

Where the idea of safeness in relationship comes in, is when this time the other does cause us emotional pain occurs, that we, together, can come through it. That we can work it out. That we repair. And through the repair process the relationship is then made stronger, and our sense of safeness in the relationship grows. Our sense of safeness in relationship also means that boundaries are respected, that we are able to say no and have that no honored, that we can share ourselves and not be punished for who we are in some way.

(Please note that I specifically named emotional pain and not physical or psychological. If someone is causing you physical or psychological harm, that will never be a relationship where you can grow a sense of safeness, and when you have the resources I would encourage you leave that relationship and find your ways to processing the pain caused.)

Stabilization

Stabilization is when we feel steady and secure in our emotions. It means we are not flooded or overwhelmed by feelings of sadness or anger. This does not mean we never feel sadness or anger; it means that they don’t overwhelm us. For many of us living with trauma in our bodies and minds this differentiation may feel impossible.

I’m here to tell you it is possible. More on that in the coming weeks.

Stabilization is also not living in that state of overwhelm, it is feeling a sense of calm, much of the time, and sometimes even when things outside of our control happen. It is in the not having big reactive responses, and instead being able to respond to outer chaos intentionally and thoughtfully.

Again, this doesn’t mean we never feel angry or sad or frustrated or misunderstood… it means that we recognize those feelings (physical sensations and emotions) and do not act out mindlessly or thoughtlessly from those feelings.

Ultimately stabilization is about having a really great relationship with our frontal lobe (where logic and empathy live) and having all the parts of our brain working together instead of our amygdala always being in charge and running rampant.

Self Care

In a nutshell, this is caring for our Self, for our Self. What I mean by this, is that many of us have received the message that we need to fill our own cup so we can be of service to others. I don’t consider that self-care. That is caring for our self for others. To me, that is not true self care.

True self care is when we nourish our self in some way (from drinking enough water during the day to seeing our therapist each week to getting enough sleep to finding ways to calm and soothe our nervous systems) because we want to care for our Self, because we believe that we are deserving.

This can be a pretty big leap. I think many of us have (and I include myself in this in the past) grudgingly done “self-care” so that we can be better parents/partners/workers; so that we have the energy and resources to be of service to others.

There is nothing wrong with being of service to others. And. There is nothing wrong with taking care of our Self for the sole reason of caring for our self.

What does any of this have to do with trauma, grief, or embodiment?

Fostering a sense of safeness and stabilization are the “first phase” of any trauma processing work. This is work that needs to be done before you dive into the deeper processing work. Once we have developed a sense of safeness and feel emotionally stable, we then have the inner resources to truly do the deep, challenging, and messy work of trauma processing and in depth embodiment work.

Coming to the idea that we are an interconnected (to others) yet autonomous Self, and that we are deserving of care because we exist not because of how we care for others, is revolutionary and also a part of our trauma processing work. Even the idea of claiming our autonomous Self, which includes our body, mind, and spirit, as ours, is pretty revolutionary, and is also part of our trauma processing work.

I talk more about all of this in the 8 minute video below.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the spring program Trauma Informed Embodiment™ : Basics. We begin May 1. You can learn more here.

This essay is the first in a three part series I have written exploring the ideas of safeness, stabilization, and self-care.. I hope you find it helpful and informative.

Definitions (this essay)

Self Regulation as Self Care

Shifting from Overwhelm to Safeness & Stabilization

Blessing for the Unleashing Ourselves Circle & for all of us

March 31, 2018 By gwynn

On the eve of each of my circles and online programs I offer a blessing to the participants and to all of us. This is the blessing for the Unleashing Ourselves: Processing Ancestral Trauma & Dislodging Internalized Misogyny circle, and truly, for each and every one of us.

May we…

Release the narratives of who, how, and what we should be

Heal the generations of wounding that has been passed down through the millenia

Process the inter-generational trauma that impacts our daily lives

Bring our unconscious motivations into our consciousness

Embrace our female lineage

Unearth the power, strength and daring of the women who came before and live within

Acknowledge our own innate, embodied wisdom

Connect to our true, authentic, whole Self: body, mind, spirit, and soul

Live mindfully and consciously into our interconnected futures

Amen.

******************************************************

If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming spring circle, Unleashing Ourselves: Processing Ancestral Trauma & Dislodging Internalized Misogyny that begins to gather April 1, you can click here. There are still a few spaces left and we’d be thrilled to have you join us. xoox

If you missed the educational essay and video series I wrote introducing the ideas and concepts we’ll be exploring and examining in the spring circle, you can find them at the links below:

Defining Ancestral, Inter-generational, & Cultural Relational Traumas and Internalized Misogyny

Connecting the Dots

Connecting Individual & Collective Traumas

Ending Cycles: Processing the Past & Changing the Future

I also wrote these essay to give more detail about the circle and our work together:

The importance of processing ancestral trauma & dislodging internalized misogyny

More About Unleashing Ourselves: Processing Ancestral Trauma & Dislodging Internalized Misogyny

The importance of processing ancestral trauma and dislodging internalized misogyny

March 20, 2018 By gwynn

Internalized misogyny does not refer outright to a belief in the inferiority of women. It refers to the byproducts of this societal view that cause women to shame, doubt, and undervalue themselves and others of their gender. It shows up even in the most feminist and socially conscious of us. And it’s insidious.

~Suzannah Weiss, 7 Sneaky Ways Internalized Misogyny Manifests in Our Everyday Lives (Bustle, December 18, 2015)

So just why is it important to process the ancestral trauma that lives within us and to put focus on dislodging our internalized misogyny?

Because we, as women, will never find freedom or equality if we don’t.

Sounds kinda dramatic, doesn’t it? Yet, it is true.

All women have varying degrees of internalized misogyny. It is impossible to not have it. When we are raised in a culture (and in families) that constantly tell us how we are inferior, how we are mere objects, how we don’t matter, how we are stupid, worthless, and not fully human, how we should feel shame about our anatomy and body shape, the only possible outcome is for those messages to find their ways into our psyches, into our bodies, into our very being.

These messages not only impact how we think of ourselves, it also deeply influences the way we look at and treat other women.

The so called “Mommy Wars”? That was (and is) all about internalized misogyny.

Every time we comment or judge the way another woman does something, that she isn’t doing it “right” or “good enough” or that she is taking “too much” time or space – that is all internalized misogyny.

When we judge the way a woman dresses. How she wears her hair. Whether or not she’s wearing make up.

When we judge a woman based on whether or not she has children (or even wants children). When we judge a woman who has children about whether or not she works outside the home.

Internalized misogyny.

Anytime we look at other women and judge them as not enough, as too much; every time we don’t believe another woman’s personal lived experience; each time we criticize and ridicule women for the choices they have made about their own damn lives…

All internalized misogyny.

(Note: criticism and ridicule are very different from critique. Critique is loving and encourages growth. Criticism and ridicule is spiteful or hateful and encourages shame).

Our internalized misogyny goes further than this too. It shows up in the ways we insist on competing with other women, the ways we feel there are not enough resources for all of us, the ways we fight over men, jobs, minutia and technicalities.

It shows up in the ways we insist upon enacting revenge upon other women when we feel we have been harmed.

It shows up in a million different big and small ways, every day.

It lives in our consciousness and our unconscious minds.

It is a by-product of not only our ancestral trauma, but also our inter-generational and cultural relational trauma.

It is a part of us, whether we like it or not.

One of the ways we see our internalized misogyny is Mean Girl™ behavior. Think back to middle school and the “cool kids” and how the “cool girls” treated everyone else.

They were bullies.

Here’s a thing though, this behavior doesn’t stop at middle school.

I see this type of behavior happening all over social media, perpetrated by ADULT WOMEN who are leaders in the feminist movement.

Yes, I have witnessed bona fide feminists, women who fight for social justice, who insist on being treating as equals and tearing down the status quo, who have been doing this work for decades, using the exact tools of the status quo of domination, authoritarianism, shaming, and othering.

(And then witnessed their followers, who seem more like sychophants, cheering them on!)

This is why we need to focus on our internalized misogyny. Because tearing down other women will never get us to where we need to be. It will never bring us the world we want for ourselves, our daughters and nieces, our granddaughters and grandnieces. Or our sons and nephews for that matter.

Our internalized misogyny is deeply rooted in our ancestral trauma. It lives in our blood and muscles and cellular make up. It is in our very DNA.

For women of European descent, consider how it must have been to be a woman living in the time of the “Witch Trials” and watching your own mother or daughter or best friend being raped, tortured, and burned alive in front of you and others in the town square?

For women who are descendants of slaves, imagine the pain of having your children torn from you and sold at auction. Imagine witnessing beatings at the hands of other (white) women, or worse when the slave masters would insist the slaves beat each other.

We can find examples from across the globe and across history of this kind of brutality inflicted upon women – mostly for simply being women – that women were witness to.

Being witness to that type of horror has its impact; it is traumatizing. What our ancestors witnessed and experienced still lives today in our DNA. And it shows up in the ways we don’t trust other women, the ways we criticize them, the ways we try to dominate and oppress them.

It shows up in the cautionary tales we tell our daughters about what to wear or how to act or the stories about those types of women.

In many ways our internalized misogyny was originally a survival mechanism. It helped to keep us alive, it helped to keep our daughters alive.

But the tools aren’t useful or helpful anymore. And in order for true social change to occur, we need to start with change within.

This is why I believe as part of our own liberation we need to explore and process our ancestral, inter-generational, and cultural relational traumas and become curious and aware of our internalized misogyny so we can begin to dislodge it, do different, and stop passing it on.

This is why for the past three years, every spring, I offer this intimate online circle centered around our ancestral trauma and internalized misogyny.

Because this is one more piece to the puzzle that will help bring about our liberation. Is is a vital piece that will help insure we do not simply use the tools of the patriarchy against other women so we ourselves can be reap the benefit.

We are all in this together. And until all of us are free, none of us are free.

…

If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming spring circle, Unleashing Ourselves: Processing Ancestral Trauma & Dislodging Internalized Misogyny that begins April 1, you can click here.

Did you miss the educational essay and video series I wrote introducing the ideas and concepts we’ll be exploring and examining in the spring circle? If so, you can find them at the links below:

Defining Ancestral, Inter-generational, & Cultural Relational Traumas and Internalized Misogyny

Connecting the Dots

Connecting Individual & Collective Traumas

Ending Cycles: Processing the Past & Changing the Future

The importance of processing Ancestral Trauma & Dislodging Internalized Misogyny (this essay)

More About the Unleashing Ourselves Circle

You can find the FAQ for this circle here.

Below are three essays I wrote prior to the 2017 offering of this circle.

Unleashing Our Self :: Mothers, daughters, and generations of trauma

Unleashing Our Self :: The loss of sisterhood

Unleashing Our Self :: Disconnection, shame, & thinking it is us