Trauma takes us away from our bodies, and turns us into their harshest judges. The path towards healing and away from this dissociation must therefore reunite us with our physical selves…Yoga, from the Sanskrit meaning “to join, unite, or attach,” invites us to enter our bodies gradually, allowing energy that has become stuck to begin flowing once more. It is even good preparation for entering a deeper meditative state, and the two together are profoundly therapeutic in becoming more mindful, and more present. Continue Reading Stress 101: Stepping Gently Into Your Body With Yoga
Stress 101: Meditation
Meditation is a discipline. Sometimes, it gets to me. In this video, in which I am upstaged by my dogs, I give a little taste both of the effort I put towards sitting, and how easy it is for me to get distracted from focusing on the present. What is important for all of us to wrap our minds around is that, if you’re expecting your brain to cooperate and stop thinking, you will not succeed. You will get frustrated, and you will give up on an intervention that is free and requires no travel, taking 15-20 minutes out of your day. Continue Reading Stress 101: Meditation
Introduction to Body Work and Other Interventions
At times, people struggle with what bodywork looks like. While I speak of other interventions as well, here I’m shown working with a friend and colleague in providing the safe, supportive touch that helps my clients tap into their yet-elusive sensations, and the emotions with which those sensations are linked.
Stress 101: Boundaries, Part 2
Trauma deeply impacts our sense of personal territory. Do we have a right to territory? What does it take to keep myself safe within that territory? If I feel an alert, should I mention it, because I might hurt someone else’s feelings? Because for me, and in my experience, our boundaries physically mark the beginning of what constitutes “us,” they are not merely a concept, and in becoming more embodied, less dissociative, we are more able to feel physically when someone is crossing those boundaries and entering what we sense as our personal space. Continue Reading Stress 101: Boundaries, Part 2
Stress 101: Boundaries, Part 1
Boundaries. I love how the therapeutic community throws words like “boundaries” around, without a clear explanation. Before you read on, in fact, go ahead and test this (and for those of you who’ve had therapy, or at least read a multitude of self-help books, this should be especially fun). How would you describe boundaries? Are… Continue Reading Stress 101: Boundaries, Part 1
Stress 101: Resourcing…Finding the Lip of the Pool Before You Dive Deep
It was an awful day. I was young, barely employed as a door-to-door salesperson for cable (and really, who can’t sell cable! me!!!), and had just gotten my umpteenth rejection. The world reeked of malaise and despair… then I looked up, at the most wonderful evening sky. The skies in New Mexico are special, of… Continue Reading Stress 101: Resourcing…Finding the Lip of the Pool Before You Dive Deep
Stress 101: Redeeming Stress
So the complaint of too much stress is a familiar one. You’ve read several times in my writings that a common definition of trauma is overwhelming stress. Before you nod your head in recognition, though, let’s stop for a few minutes and challenge that notion. What constitutes “too much stress?” This is what I’ve learned: the experience of stress is greatest when our stamina is low.
Sitting on a couch does not help. Trying to run the marathon at the start does not help. Workouts that build in intensity and build our stamina do, emotionally as well as physically. Continue Reading Stress 101: Redeeming Stress
Stress 101 Essentials: Grounding
You can’t think grounding, you’ve got to feel it. Imagine that your body is a live wire, downed by some horrible Nor’easter. Sparks flying all over the place! Trauma has that effect, so much overwhelming and unpleasant energy coursing sharply and erratically through our bodies that we can practically smell the sizzle, or on the other hand, past the sizzle and well into burn-out. Grounding works like the third prong on a plug, or the post at the end of the wire…it absorbs some of the excess energy that would otherwise lead to shorting out. Continue Reading Stress 101 Essentials: Grounding
The Illusion of Safety, and How to Get Past It
There is an old story: a heartless general, at the head of a ruthless army, devastates village after village. He arrives at a temple and, to his surprise, finds the gate unlocked. In the middle of the courtyard within kneels a monk. The general dismounts, unsheathes his sword, and approaches the monk. The monk fails to prostrate himself before the general, which offends him. “Do you not know who I am? I am not afraid to kill you,” to which the monk replies, “Do you not know who I am? I am not afraid to die.”….Matilda and I worked together for quite a while, and she taught me more about courage than any colleague, friend or family member ever did. And one of the most important lessons we learned together was to embrace the truth of her mortality, while understanding that now, she was alive. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross hoped that, as people normalized the grief process around death, that they would paradoxically become freer to embrace the vitality that was yet in them. The monk doesn’t want to die, but he has embraced the eventuality of it, and it no longer frightens him. He cannot be threatened…and when we talk of safety, isn’t that what we’re really talking about? Continue Reading The Illusion of Safety, and How to Get Past It
Stress 101: What You Need to Know On Your Journey
When clients come to me for trauma work, sooner or later they find themselves mourning the loss of safety. Before whatever horrible event happened that brought them in to see me, they had it. A sense of what it is to be safe, or at least safe-enough, that allowed them to get through the day without feeling the need for eyes in the backs of their heads, or that constant spidey-sense that clinicians call “hypervigilence.” It happens in a shocking instant; before that moment, they did not question that they would be able to get through life without major wounds, other than the usual rules of discretion and environmental awareness: don’t walk at night alone, don’t trust the guy who can’t look you in the eyes,etc . And why not? Most people, after all, do seem to get through. After that instance, the terrible “aha,” we understand now that safety is an illusion, that despite due diligence, shit does happen. Usually it’s a mundane moment, perhaps the one where they come out of shock, look around, and realize they are now seeing life with different eyes. In that moment, so much dies. Their faith, their hope, their confidence in themselves that goes along with the lingering and self-serving delusion, “surely I could have done things differently, then this would not have happened.” Self-serving, because none of us is that powerful. Continue Reading Stress 101: What You Need to Know On Your Journey