Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Slowing into the pause & breaking harmful patterns

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Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. ~Rollo May, The Courage to Create

she learned to walk away
from everything
that didn’t inspire her
toward greater things
~Mark Anthony

a successful life is created
with two words: yes and no
have the courage to say yes
only when it feels right
and no to the old patterns
that do not serve you
~yung pueblo

One way that complex trauma impacts us in our adult lives is in our relationships, be they with friends, family, or intimate partners. Many of us with complex trauma are not good at tolerating painful emotions, like sadness, frustration, or disappointment. 

In fact, most of us don’t have a lot of tolerance for the more “positive” emotions like happiness, joy, and pleasure either.

Any feeling – sensation and emotion – can feel too much and can trigger our fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. The feelings can be overwhelming and so we need a way to release them, to get them out of us, because actually feeling them is intolerable.

So, we start fights. Or turn away and cut people out of our lives. In the moment we may freeze and feel stuck or placate and people please and then later move into the space of either wanting to fight or flee. Depending on the situation we do one or the other of these or we do some in rapid succession. 

Our reaction is generally immediate and coming directly from our back (or reptile) brain. There is no thought that is going into it. We don’t slow down to engage our front brain and are fully in our survival instinct. Because feeling our feelings feels like our actual lives are in danger. It feels like they might consume us. It feels like we won’t survive the sensations and emotions that are swirling within us.

I know for me a go to reaction was always to flee. And by flee I mean turn my back and cut people out of my life. One disappointment, one time of feeling rejected or abandoned, and it was “proof” that the person wasn’t trustworthy and therefore I needed to shut them out of my life. My armor would go up and if need be I would start fights if they wouldn’t “let” me leave. 

It has taken a lot of time, therapy, practice, patience, and self compassion to find my way to pause between the action of an emotion being activated and responding.

Because for most of my life I reacted, immediately, and without thought. What I want for my life, for my relationships, is for me to be able to thoughtfully respond, to slow down and evaluate the facts of the situation and previous situations so that I can respond intentionally and mindfully.

This has meant coming into my body. This has meant learning to tolerate all those intolerable sensations and emotions. This has meant practicing keeping my front brain (where logic, reasoning, creativity, problem solving, and compassion live) online while also experiencing the sensations and emotions that live in my back brain.

It hasn’t meant stuffing my feelings down. 

It has meant allowing myself to experience them and learning to know they won’t actually kill me. They will be uncomfortable, I may not like it, but I certainly won’t die.

When we are able to engage our front brain while also experiencing our feelings, we can begin to look at situations more objectively. We can look for patterns, for habits, for cycles. We slow down not to make excuses for the other person, but to see if our own pain is actually stemming fully from something they did or said or if it also stems from a long ago wound that never healed. 

And then we can decide how we want to respond to the person. We can intentionally decide if this is an opportunity for our own personal growth and processing. We can decide if it is an opportunity for us to communicate our needs, to repair in relationship and to stay. Or to communicate our needs, set a boundary, and possibly leave.

It is true that when another person triggers our feelings of disappointment, frustration, abandonment, and or betrayal that it was indeed their action or words that did this. It is true that our hurt is in part due to the what the other person did or said.

And.

They don’t deserve the full force of our fury or rage or pain, most of which comes from past hurts from others we trusted.

Sometimes when another person triggers our painful feelings it isn’t intentional, or may be a matter of circumstance or what they did or said is actually a perfectly reasonable or normal thing, but it sets off our alarms anyhow. Sometimes these triggers are not an indication of who they are as a person.

And honestly, sometimes it is.

Which is why we need the pause. So we can slow ourselves down and determine what we actually know about the other person. What we actually know about ourselves. What patterns we have seen. What other actions and words we have witnessed or not. 

We need the pause so we can engage our frontal lobe and respond in a way that lets us stand in our own integrity and authenticity. Without needing to cause another pain. Without lashing out. Without cutting people out because in that moment we are hurting and find it unbearable.

The pause requires us to be in our bodies, to be able to tolerate uncomfortable even painful emotions and sensations. It also allows us to enjoy the fun and pleasurable emotions and sensations that can also a part of living as a human.

Learning to live embodied, to tolerate, experience, and sometimes even enjoy the sensations and emotions of our fully human lives is a life long process. There are not five easy steps and then you are done. It is not a one time thing we can check off. It is a constant practice that will have its own ebbs and flows.

The pause will not come to us quickly. It will take time. At first you will notice while you are reacting that you are indeed having an immediate response. With time you will be able to “bring yourself down” more smoothly and quickly. Then, you will begin to notice that you are about to lash out and eventually stop it. In more time, with more practice, you will be able to catch yourself at the very beginning of being triggered. You will be able to feel the sensations and emotions and also be able to explore them, analyze them and the situation logically. And then intentionally decide how we want to respond.

Having patience and compassion for ourselves during this process, while learning to come into our body and to tolerate all the different, varied, and nuanced sensations and feelings and learning how to find that breath, that pause, when some or all our old wounds are triggered is vital and part of the process.

It is true that what was done to us by others is not our fault, we are not to blame for their actions. And we are responsible to learn to respond to new hurts in ways that hold us in our own integrity, in a way that does not continue to pass on harmful patterns, in ways that allow us to break painful cycles for ourselves and the generations to come.

/…/

To read more of my essays, you can subscribe to my weekly(ish) newsletter here.

Love is not a victory march

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And love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
~Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

The last year plus has been traumatic for our world politically and culturally, and because of this, also for many of us personally. We have seen some of our worst fears of what would happen with Republican run Executive and Legislative branches here in the United States. We have seen so much put back forty or more years in time, so much more that has been attempted to be put back. With each hit it feels like we are sinking deeper and deeper in a dystopian novel.

And.

Last year saw #metoo. And this year #timesup.  We see more and more women coming forward and some of the men who perpetrated sex crimes actually having consequences for their actions. I have been witness to more and more people becoming aware of the social injustices in the world, acknowledging their own internalized biases, compliance, and complicity, and doing the work to make change both within themselves and out in the world.

This shifting in our culture and within ourselves has been about love.

Unearthing what love actually means.

That love is a verb.

That love is not always gentle.

That love can be fiery, fierce, loud.

That love can be both protective and can push us outside of our comfort zones.

That love and justice can and should go hand in hand. And in that mix there needs to also be compassion and boundaries.

I believe that on any given day in any given moment all of us are doing the best we can with the tools we have.

This best we can may not be good enough. This best we can may actually be harmful to ourselves or to others. Other’s don’t have to accept our “best we can”. And in order for me to have hope in humanity, I do still believe we are each trying our best to be the best humans we know how to be.

And.

It is also true that sometimes the “best” others can do is something we need to say a firm NO to. And this No can, and in my opinion should, come from a place of deep love. Love for ourselves as well as love for the other person. And perhaps love for all humanity.

The #metoo movement that has caught fire in the last couple of years is a statement of this kind of love. A love comprised of clearly stating this is where I end and you begin and you don’t get to cross this line without my permission. A love comprised of compassion for ourselves and the traumas we have experienced at the hands of (mostly) men. A love comprised of empathy for others with similar experiences and especially for those who are able to speak up and out.

It is a love that seeks more than justice. It is a love that seeks our humanity.

We are at the dawn of a new epoch of human history. We have perhaps been at this dawn for the last hundred or so years. We have seen cultural “norms” slowly, sometimes painfully slowly, shift. We have seen the emancipation of slaves, the suffrage movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, all in the last 150 years. This is after, literally, millennia of slavery, and the de-humanizing of women, persons of color, queer folks, the poor, and anyone who is not a white, heterosexual, middle class (or “better”), CIS, male.

One hundred fifty years is barely a drop in the bucket when you look back three to six thousand years.

The shifting of our culture feels slow. And it is taking multiple generations. And will likely take multiple more before we live in a world where racism, misogyny, ablism, and homophobia are quaint things of past.

And.

With each movement, more movements are born. With each small shift there is a ripple effect.

And those ripples are getting larger. And stronger.

And the more we do this work of shifting ourselves and our world, the more we see the importance of doing this work with love made of justice, compassion, empathy, and boundaries.

Love is not always gentle. In fact, I believe love can actually be rather rude. Love shows up when we set our own boundaries and love shows up when we respect and honor the boundaries another person has set for themselves, whether we like those boundaries or not.

Love is willing to be uncomfortable. To sit in the discomfort of unraveling our own familial and cultural training. To sit in the discomfort of unraveling the trauma that lives within us and sorting what is ours, what is our ancestors, and what has absolutely nothing to do with us or our lineage. To sit in the discomfort of sometimes being wrong and causing harm and doing the work to make amends. To sit in the discomfort of acceptance that we are not always in control, and that sometimes honoring the boundaries of another person can be personally and emotionally painful (not harmful, painful) for us.

Love is fierce. And can be filled with rage. Love can be loud and bold and demanding.

Love is sometimes gentle too. And can be quiet. Love is supportive, always. Love is in the giving and receiving. To ourselves and to others. Always and in all ways.

Love is not a bully. It is not used as a weapon to cause harm or manipulate and impose unrealistic expectations.

Love is a comrade. It is a tool we can use to deconstruct our oppressive culture. It is a tool we can use to create a new world where there is justice and safeness and the embracing of differences.

Love is speaking and listening and hearing. Love is respecting and honoring.

The Christian bible states in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ::

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

I can agree with most of this. And, I do believe that love is not blind, that while it doesn’t keep score and it does trust, it is always smart and aware and knows who and when to trust and when not. Love is not gullible.

Love has been a tool for change within myself for most of my life and in particular I have leaned on love this year. Love for my Self. The love of friends and family. Love as a verb. Love as a lesson. Love as a breathing, shifting, thing that both has torn me apart and put me back together.

May we all use love as a tool for destruction of our own old harmful patterns and ways and for creation of new ways of being which invite ourselves and others to live in compassion, empathy, justice, and truth.

/../

This essay originally written in December 2017 for the subscribers of my newsletter.  I edited it a bit for publication here.  If you’d like to subscribe to my weekly love letters you can fill out the form on this page.

The Goo: A time of renewal, restructuring, re-evolving

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Metamorphosis is the most profound of all acts. ~Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

And I feel like the Queen of Water. I feel like water that transforms from a flowing river to a tranquil lake to a powerful waterfall to a freshwater spring to a meandering creek to a salty sea to raindrops gentle on your face to hard, stinging hail to frost on a mountaintop, and back to a river again. ~María Virginia Farinango, The Queen of Water

I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me. ~Anaïs Nin

According to Merriam-Webster to renew has the following definitions:

  • to restore to existence : revive
  • to make extensive changes in : rebuild
  • to begin again : resume
  • replace, replenish
  • to become new or as new
  • to begin again : resume

If we look in the thesaurus, some synonyms for renewal are:

  • awaken
  • transform
  • metamorphosis
  • revolution
  • shift
  • radical change

When I think of renewal I think of the story of Inanna, the Sumerian Goddess of Heaven and Earth.  The very condensed version of the story is that Inanna travels to the Underworld to be with her grieving sister, Ereshkigal. Inanna had to travel through seven gates on her way down into the Underworld, leaving a piece of clothing behind at each gate to enter into the Underworld completely naked.  The descent into the Underworld and removal of layers of clothing represents Release.  Her time in the Underworld represents Renewal.

Ereshkigal was not happy to see her sister and had her hung on a hook to die.  Inanna’s handmaiden, Ninshubar came after three days and helped Inanna back up through the gates, reclaiming what is rightfully hers at each gate, and back to the land of living.

This time in the Underworld, hanging on a hook dead, was the time of Inanna’s renewal, her own transformation, her incubation that lead to her rebirth.

It was her time in The Goo.

If you are new to me and my work, The Goo is the time in the cocoon when the caterpillar has fully disintegrated and decomposed yet not yet formed into a butterfly or moth.  My feeling is that this is a very uncomfortable time.  The Goo is no longer what it was (a caterpillar) and also isn’t yet what it is to become (a butterfly or moth) and honestly I believe The Goo has no idea what the future holds for it, and so it is a time of unknown, a time of needing to trust in the future without being able to see it. It is the time of great change, great shifting, profound transformation.

While The Goo is uncomfortable, likely terrifying, it is a time of quiet restructuring.  To the outside world when we are in our own versions of The Goo, it may look like we are doing a whole lot of nothing or that we are resting.  This is because The Goo is not a time doing, it is a time of being.  It is a time of outer stillness in many ways.  Not stagnant, for there is much movement internally, but stillness to allow for the internal restructuring and integration to take place.

The Goo is when we learn what it is to tolerate discomfort, to accept the unknown, to be able to be in the in-between spaces of life without trying to force things in one direction or another.  It is a time of acceptance.  Of surrender.  Of allowing what needs to happen to happen.

It is not an easy time.  Like the stage of release, but to a greater degree, it is a time of unlearning, unraveling.  A time of allowing old neuropathways to atrophy and new ones to sprout and take root.  It may be a physically painful time, it is always an emotionally painful time, and there may even be moments of psychological pain as we let go of old coping mechanisms that no longer serve us, but in fact are now causing us harm.

The Goo may feel unbearable at times, but it does not last forever.  Even the most profound of transformations do come to an end (to allow us to move into a new time of transformation).  The discomfort doesn’t last forever, pain does pass.  The person we become on the other side, I believe, is worth all the work, and discomfort.

I talk more about these ideas in the 8-minute video below.

This essay is the third of a four part series I have written exploring our narratives of too much, not enough, and the shame we carry and how we can release them and reclaim our own strength, power, and daring.  I hope you find it helpful and informative.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the fall online women’s circle Becoming Unleashed.  We begin October 1 and space is limited to six women.  You can learn more here.

In case you missed the other essays and videos in this series, you can find them at the links below:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

The Goo: A time of renewal, restructuring, re-evolving (this essay)

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring

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

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…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

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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