Category: trauma

Posted on

Activated, softening, or both

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.  ~Willa Cather

If we turn away from our own pain, we may find ourselves projecting this aversion onto others, seeing them as somehow inadequate for being in a troubled situation. ~Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves. ~Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. “I’m this way because my father made me this way. I’m this way because my husband made me this way.” Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.  ~Camille Paglia

Many of us across the globe are staying home in an attempt to flatten the curve of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.  We aren’t leaving for work or play.  We are within our four walls every day of the week, almost every single hour – with the occasional exception to leave and get groceries or other necessities.  

This can have us all a little stir crazy.  Developing “cabin fever” as we are also trying to manage the stress of the present along with any old traumas that may be activated right now because of what is happening both out in the world and with our own friends and families.

The stress, frustration, and grief centered around the present moments mixed with the same around our past wounding, can lead us to not always being our best selves.  

We don’t have much control over the current global pandemic.  We can each do our own part to try to flatten the curve and stay home as much as possible and to practice physical distancing when we are out and about.  And that is all any of us can do.

This lack of control may have us agitated.  

Add to this all our usual distractions aren’t available to us – sports broadcasts have halted, bars are closed, as are restaurants and retail stores. The ways we avoid, ignore, and stuff down our feelings; the ways we avoid dealing with our past and current hurts, pain, and trauma – they are mostly gone.  

This leaves us almost no other choice than to sit with our own stuff.

This too, can be highly agitating.

In our own agitation we may find ourselves being short with others.  We may find ourselves picking fights. We may find ourselves stuck in a cycle of blame and shame – blaming another for how we are feeling and acting while also feeling shame around how we feeling and acting.

We are in an unprecedented time.  This can be a time of healing – if we allow it to be.  This can be a time to begin to learn to sit with our own uncomfortable feelings (emotions and their physical sensations) – if we allow it to be. This can be a time of learning and practicing breaking life long and generations old patterns and cycles of harm – to ourselves and others — if we allow it to be. 

Many of us are in a heightened state of activation.  This true. It is also true that even with this, we are still responsible for our actions. For the ways we treat those close to us. For the ways we show up, for ourselves and for others.  For the ways we use this time, when all our go-to distractions are unavailable.  

And while many of us are in a heightened state of activation, it is also true that many of us are in a heightened state of softening.  That our hearts are breaking open even more, that the remaining bits of our hard armor are falling away, that we are in this time gently shifting into new ways of being with each other and with ourselves. 

And it is true that for many of us, we are moving back and forth between heightened activation and softening.

As we move through these challenging and unprecedented times, I invite us to come back into our bodies, to be present to the myriad of conflicting and complimentary emotions and physiological sensations we are experiencing.  I invite us to seek out new ways of being with ourselves, to find ways to break old harmful patterns and cycles.  I invite us to soften, to become gentler, with ourselves and others.  I invite us to find ways to inner peace within the outer chaos.  I invite us to nurture, to provide loving care, to ourselves and others. 

I invite us to a new way of being in the world.  One that gathers together in community, even when we cannot physically gather.  One that cares for one another instead of only looking out for ourselves.  One that shares in the abundance instead hoard out of fear of scarcity.  One that guides us to peace and love and joy as well as creates space for feeling, processing, and allowing the flow of upset, loss, and grief.

Let us all be a part of a global revolution of change.  To acknowledge our fear and to do it anyway. To step into the unknown, with open hearts and open arms -for ourselves, for others, and for our planet.  

/../

This essay was originally published in my weeklyish newsletter on April 4, 2020. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays, subscribe here.

In Embodied Writing :: Relating, relationships, and trauma we will be exploring how trauma impacts our relationships and ways that we can begin to break (often generations old) patterns and cycles. You can learn more and register here.

Posted on

The importance of connecting during isolation

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection to a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.  ~Albert Einstein

When people go within and connect with themselves, they realize they are connected to the universe and they are connected to all living things.  ~Armand Dimele

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.  ~Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

As most of us across the globe are in physical isolation to help flatten the curve of the COVID-19 global pandemic, we are all adjusting to new and different ways of connecting with those we care about.  Zoom has seen a massive uptick in usage, as well as phone apps like WhatsApp and MarcoPolo.  We are learning the importance of these connections as the option to see folks in person is not advisable or safe.

We humans are social beings.  We are meant to live in community and to connect to each other regularly.  Our very survival once depended on it and our brains and epigenetic memory haven’t forgotten this.

For some of us, we normally live in relative isolation.  We only go out once or twice a week, if that often or we rarely socialize outside of work.  This means that having this already limited time of interaction with others removed as a possibility for an unknown period of time can have our feelings of isolation and anxiety skyrocket.

I know this has been true for me.  

I like to be “alone with people.”  This looks like me going to my favorite pub, sitting in a booth alone and working (and eating and drinking too), while others around me talk and laugh and socialize.  It gives my introverted self a sense of connection and community and protects my INFJ self from needing to partake in small talk.  I also go to the beach and usually see a couple people, we wave at each other or say hello and go about our business. It is very limited interaction, and yet I find it an important part of my own connection to humanity and it helps with my own sense of belonging and community.

(This is not to say I don’t go out with friends, I do, and not all that frequently because introvert and life is just full).

Having this very limited amount of community removed as an option for me has been intense.  

What this has meant is me pushing myself outside my own comfort zone.  I have joined two different online groups; groups with people I have never met.  And I am actually making myself participate.  I’m joining the calls.  I’m connecting the FB groups and on the group Marco Polo.  I’m putting myself out into the world in a way I don’t normally.

It is uncomfortable as hell.

And it is absolutely totally necessary for my own mental health.

Connecting to others, in whatever ways we can, is important.  We can still maintain our boundaries, we can still honor our introverted parts (for those of us who have them). 

And presently we need to be finding new and different ways of connecting.  What the looks like will be different for each of us.  What is important is that we are connecting.  That we are having our needs for a sense of belonging met.  That we are finding ways to sooth our anxiety and co-regulate.  That we are connecting with faces and voices outside our own four walls (whether we live with others or not).

It is vital in this time of physical isolation to remember and be reminded that we are part of a greater world. That our global community needs us active in it.  Human interaction is important to help us with processing our own attachment wounds and complex trauma – and not just therapists, but in finding our people who we can come together with and have our needs for connection met.

We need to be in relationship in order to find ways of healing our relational wounding and exploring new ways of relating.  We can’t heal our attachment wounds in isolation.  We can’t process our complex trauma alone.  We can’t experiment with new ways of being in relationship if we aren’t relating with others.

May we all find our ways to social connections during this time of physical isolation that are nourishing, fulfilling, and meaningful.

/../

This essay was originally published in my weeklyish newsletter on March 30, 2020. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most current essays, you can subscribe here.

Posted on

Managing our stress & anxiety in challenging times

The bodies of traumatized people portray “snapshots” of their unsuccessful attempts to defend themselves in the face of threat and injury. Trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time. For example, when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body are tensed in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.  ~Peter A. Levine

Unspeakable feelings need to find expression in words. However… verbalization of very intense feelings may be a difficult task.  ~James A. Chu, Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders

There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it.  ~Laurie Matthew, Behind Enemy Lines

We are living in an unprecedented time.  The current COVID-19 pandemic is having us “socially distance” from each other, while (in the US at least) schools, community centers, and libraries are closing their doors.  We are being encouraged to stay at least six feet from other humans, to work from home, to “self-quarantine” while also receiving messages to go out and support local restaurants and other service based businesses, leaving us confused as to what is best for ourselves, our families, and our communities in general.

Add to this we have social media.  And the internet.  Which means access to information literally 24/7.  This can be soothing to some and activating to others.  The greater issue is the sometimes conflicting and misinformation.

This is all activating our survival response.  This is all exacerbating our anxiety.  This is all stressful and leaves us in a state of not being clear on what we should or shouldn’t be doing (other than washing our hands).

And.

Our need for connection, for belonging, is also increased right now.  Our bodies are wired to be in community and groups when crisis arises.  So when we are unable to connect to our communities, fear around our own survival (subconsciously and consciously) sets in. 

Part of our fear response is denial.  Denial that things are “that bad.” Denial that this crisis will affect us.  Denial that we need to worry about it at all.

As a whole we are on a spectrum between denial (fear suppression) and holy fuck we’re all gonna die (full on fear overwhelm).

I write all that, to try and help normalize what your personal response is.  What is happening for you.  How we can be vacillating between being completely annoyed by this all to being completely terrified.  How we simply feel lost in it all, are trying so hard to figure out what our new normal looks like and to accept that we don’t know how long this new normal will be for. 

This is all deeply stressful.

For those of us with complex trauma, for those of us who need routine and stability and predictability, this is beyond unsettling.  

This means that our practices of soothing and calming our nervous system are vital.  Whatever they may be.   

It means taking time to breathe.  To rest.  To be present with our people now.  

It means allowing all the complex and sometimes conflicting feelings (emotions and sensations) to come through.  To not deny our experience.  To acknowledge where we are in this moment.  Where ever that may be.  

It means having compassion for our Self, our loved ones, and our communities, as we navigate this “new normal” and figure out what does and doesn’t work for us, our families, and the greater collective.  

It means knowing that we are going to get some things wrong. It means those we love are going to get some things wrong.  It means those we trust and respect are going to get some things wrong.  

It means we are all stumbling.  Trying to figure out how to support ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities.  

It means there are no absolutely right or absolutely wrong answers or ways of being right now.

It means we are living in liminal space.

Which, whoa, our activated nervous systems DO NOT LIKE.

I invite you to allow yourself to stop.  To take a breath or a beat to allow yourself to not be in reaction mode.  To stop and just allow yourself to be, just for a moment.  To stop and not make a single decision, just for a moment.

Remember to care for yourself.  Remember that we absolutely can NOT be of service to anyone if we are in a state of constant overwhelm and or burn out.  Remember that our families, our communities, and our own bodies and minds, need us to be caring for our self.

Self care is NOT selfish.  It is necessary for survival.  

It is especially necessary during times of crisis.  Like now.

There is no “under-reacting” or “over-reacting” right now.  These are unprecedented times.  We absolutely do not know what to expect in the long or even short run.  Our fear response is both valid and understandable AND needs to be managed (not suppressed, managed).  

Reminding ourselves as best we can to create that pause between stimulus and response is important right now.  Sometimes we will be able to do it and other times not.  And that is okay.

Reminding ourselves to have compassion for ourselves AND others is important right now.  Sometimes we will be able to and other times not.  And that is okay.

Reminding ourselves that all our complicated, complex, and contradictory feelings are valid is important right now.  Sometimes we will be able to do this and other times not.  And that is okay.

Giving ourselves permission to show up as fully human, that is what matters.  To let go of shame and shaming as much as we can.  

We are truly all in this together.  AND we need to take care of ourselves as we take care of each other.  Be gentle.  Be loving.  Be kind.  Be compassionate.  Towards others, and most especially to your Self.

In rebellious solidarity, always.
xoox

/../

This essay was originally written for my weeklyish newsletter on March 15, 2020. It has been edited for publication here. To receive my recent essays, subscribe here.

If you are looking for resources and tools to help you regulate your system during this time, I invite you to explore our offering at Trauma & Co, Resourcing in Complex Times and or our Trauma & Co Community.

Posted on

A love letter to you and me

I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. ~ Anais Nin

You torment yourself wondering
how they could not love your 
Burning heart.
and the answer is darling, 

You are not the star
you thought you were.

You are the fucking universe.

and not everyone is an astronaut.
~wild moon woman

And you tried to change, didn’t you?  Closed your mouth more.  Tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake… You can’t make homes out of human beings.  Someone should have already told you that.   And if he wants to leave, then let him leave.  You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful.  Something not everyone knows how to love.  ~Unknown

Breathe.
Oh you gorgeous human, breathe.

You live in a world that hates you. That wants to mold you and reduce you and put you in a box of its own liking.

But you won’t let it.

You live in a world that wants you quiet, silent, agreeing with everything the status quo says is right.

But you speak out.  You speak up.  You use your voice.  You have the audacity to disagree, sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly.  

You live in a world that views you as a thing.  An object.  Something to be used and abused and consumed at someone else’s whim.

But you demand to be recognized as a human being.  Who is not to be used or objectified or trifled with. An autonomous being of your own creation.

Breathe.
Oh you fabulous, effervescent human, breathe.

We live in a world that says we only have value if we are producing.  Babies.  Content.  A beautiful home for our husband.

But we take time to slow down, to rest.  We decide for ourselves if children are to be a part of our path or not.  We demand that any spouse or partner take equal part in creating and maintaining a shared home.

We live in a world that tells us we are hysterical, that our rage and sadness and frustration are all invalid.  That we want and expect too much of others, of the world.  That we are unreasonable.

But we know that our rage and sadness and frustration stems from generations of oppression, of abuse, of murder.  That all our feelings are valid.  That expecting others to treat us with basic respect and dignity and kindness is a baseline.  That we are beyond reasonable and are always looking for ways for everyone to get their needs met, but not at the cost of our own.  

We live in a world that expects us to beg for scraps and when we receive them, even though they aren’t nearly enough to sustain us, we are supposed to be and act so fucking grateful.

But we know our worth, we know our value, and we know it is bullshit to accept scraps that aren’t nearly enough to nourish us, to sustain us.  

Breathe.
You gorgeous, amazing human, breathe.

You are beautiful and amazing.  You are strong and capable.  You are brilliant and so fucking deserving of everything good and incredible.

You wake up every single morning and you fight.  You fight by getting out of bed and making yourself (and or your kids) food.  You fight by taking a shower.  You fight by saying you are going to keep going, even if only for today.

You are gorgeous and awe inspiring.  You are a force of nature.  You are dazzling and so worthy of love and respect.

You do your work, every single fucking day.  Your work in the world.  Your inner work.  You do all that you can, what you must, to stop the generations of abuse, neglect and trauma from being passed down through you.   

You are exquisite and magnificent.  You are uplifting and awesome.  You are luminous and significant.

You bring light and hope to those who know you.  You give love, so much fucking love, to those who are in your world.  You matter to so many.  The world would be a darker place without you in it.  

Breathe.
Oh you stunning, sparkling human, breathe. 

Thank you.  

Thank you for all you bring into the world.
|
Thank you for doing your work, for stumbling and getting up and trying again the next day.  

Thank you for wanting more, for wanting different, for wanting better, for yourself, for the world, for the generations to come.

Thank you for all you do in this world.  Even if you feel like it isn’t enough.  Even if you are so fucking beyond exhausted.  Even if all you can do many days is simply keep breathing.

Thank you.

Remember that you are enough.

All you do is enough.

You don’t need to prove your worth.

You are already worthy.

You don’t need to prove your deserving.

You deserve all amazing things simply because you are alive.

Remember to give yourself credit for all you have done.  For the person you are today.  For the changes you have already made.  For the work you have struggled through.  For the darkness you have clawed your way out of.

Remember to give yourself credit for all that you are.  For the love you give.  For your willingness to grow and shift and change.  For all those generations old patterns and cycles you have already broken.

Remember you are amazing.  You are gorgeous.  You are deserving and worthy.

Of course you still have work to do.  Of course you still struggle with certain patterns and cycles.  Of course you fuck up, on the daily.

You are human.

All of that does not make you less beautiful.  It does not make you less luminous.  It does not make you less deserving of love, respect, liberation.

Today remember all you are.  You are made of star dust.  Of raging fire.  Of luscious earth.  Of vast oceans.  Of life giving air.

You are strong, even when you feel weak.  You are loved, even when you feel you don’t deserve it.  You are part of the web of humanity and the cosmos, even when you feel so very, very soul-crushingly lonely.

You are a fighter.  You are a survivor.  You are a warrior. Even if you don’t feel it most days.  By simply continuing to exist you are these things.  Be simply demanding to take in breath, you are these things.  By doing all you do beyond this, you are these things.

And because of this, because  you are wholly you.  Unapologetically you.  Unfailingly you, human, flawed, perfectly imperfect.  Struggling, scared, anxious.  Fucking up and still continuing to try and do different.

Because of this and so much more, I am so deeply grateful you are here.

You matter.

In this world.  To those who know you personally and intimately.  And to me.

/../

This essay was written and originally published in my weekly(ish) newsletter on March 8, 2020. It has been revised and edited for publication here. To receive my most recent essays you can subscribe here.

We will talk a bit about self-worth, deserving, and self compassion in the six month Trauma Informed Embodiment™ for Sexual Trauma Survivors (TIE™ STS) group that being on March 16. To learn more, click here.

Posted on

Self regulation, body reclamation, & trusting ourselves

Knowing yourself is first step towards self reclamation.  ~Amit Gupta

We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.  ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

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

Living with unprocessed complex trauma means living with a dysregulated nervous system.  It means living in a state of dissociation.  It means not being able to trust ourselves, our reactions, or others and our surroundings.

Living with complex trauma, living in that activated state, in that anxious state, more hours of the day than not, is exhausting.  Emotionally, psychologically, and physically/physiologically.

It impacts our health.  Physical, emotional, psychological.

The impacts of living with unprocessed trauma is exacerbated by the world we live in.  A world where womxn, people of color, trans and non-binary persons, are oppressed and murdered for simply having the audacity to breathe.

A world where being poor is essentially a death sentence.

A world where billionaires can buy their way into the presidency.

A world where victims are blamed and survivors aren’t believed.

A world that is ultimately unsafe.

Knowing this, knowing our world is unsafe, fundamentally so, that this reality activates and exacerbates our complex trauma, how to do we find ways of regulating our nervous systems, reclaim our body, and learn to trust our Self and not be at the mercy of our fight/flight and freeze/fawn reactions?

First, I believe it is so important that we don’t gaslight ourselves.  That we don’t tell our Self that the world is perfectly safe when it’s not.  Yes, there are spaces where we are more or even mostly safe.  In those spaces, we can tell our systems, body, and Self that we are safe enough. 

That said we can also go out and function in the world without being controlled by our limbic system.  We can learn to lower our baseline anxiety, to self regulate, to reclaim our body as OURS and ours only, and even to trust ourselves without lying to ourselves about the reality of the world we live in.

In fact, we need to be able to go out into the world and function.  We need to be able to learn to relate to others in ways that aren’t activating, that don’t escalate already tense situations.  To relate to others from a place of compassion, curiosity, community.  To actually relate to other humans, and ourselves, instead of constantly being on the defense or offense.

I believe in order for us to learn to relate to others, in any and all spaces, we need to bring our baseline anxiety down.  To regulate our autnomic nervous system.  To reclaim our body as our own and to come home into it.  To trust our deeper knowing, our body, our perceptions, while also being curious and open to check in with ourselves and see if what is happening is a response to a past trauma or the present moment.

We need to know if what is happening within is a response to the present moment or that our past trauma experience(s) is being activated in some way, in order to relate to people and situations in ways that are beneficial for all involved, and for the greater collective.

Ultimately, I’m saying it is important for us to do our work.  To learn to self regulate.  To reclaim our body and come home to it.  To know our self well enough so we know when we can trust and when we need to dig a little deeper.

It is important for us to do our work not only so we can enjoy our lives more and have deeper and more fulfilling relationships, but also so the the new ways we are in the world start to make a greater shift for our communities and the greater collective. 

We aren’t required to do this work.  It wasn’t our fault that we were harmed and what we do or don’t do with our processing or healing is wholly up to us.

AND.

We are required to not cause harm to others.  To not perpetuate abuse and trauma.  

I honestly don’t know another way to not cause harm, to ourselves, to other individuals, to the collective, to the planet, than to continue doing our own personal trauma work and breaking the generations old patterns and cycles that have brought us, individually and collectively, where we are today.

This is not simple work.  I don’t believe it’s ever done.  We have layers and layers, lifetimes worth of patterns and cycles to unravel and untangle.

Learning to regulate our nervous system takes practice and time.

Reclaiming our body as ours takes practice, compassion, and an understanding that this part of our work will ebb and flow.

Coming to a place of both trusting our inner knowing and being self-aware enough to know the difference between this knowing and an activated past trauma response takes knowing how to self-regulate, coming into our bodies, and practice, time, compassion, and patience.

This trifecta, self-regulation, body reclaiming, and trusting our Self, is so key to being able to change all our relationships and changing the world. It is how we shift from our own individual survival to having a life that is fulfilling and thriving.  It is a vital part of the revolution and evolution of our species.  It is an important piece of how we will burn down our authoritarian, white supremacist, oppressive systems and come together to build something different, where all persons are free, loved, and liberated.

/../

This essay was originally written for my weeklyish newsletter on March 1, 2020. It has been edited for publication here. If you would like to read my recent essays you can subscribe here.

In Trauma Informed Embodiment™ for Sexual Trauma Survivors we will explore this trifecta, learning tools to self regulate our nervous system, practicing exercises of reclaiming and coming back into our body, and exploring ways to deeper self-awareness, starting to know the difference between our inner knowing and an activated past trauma and seeing the ways we can begin to actually trust our Self.  We will begin on Monday March 16 and registration will close on Sunday, March 15 at 10pm PST.  There are nine spaces total and six are currently still available.  To learn more about this six month group program, you can click right here.