Tag: body-mind

Empathy – building pathways to a new society

Empathy starts in your body.  Every cell in our bodies resonates with the world around us. We are more or less in connection depending on our ability to relax and soften into the moment. when we empathize…and by feeling in our own bodies the stories of another, we empathize with their suffering, or joy. Empathy is critical to caring, compassion, connectedness. We feel less alone the moment someone empathizes with our suffering. So much of healing is based on that moment.

A colleague told me recently about how it is more important to develop empathy than analysis. That really got me thinking. I am intensely analytical at times. It is important to me to think things through thoroughly.

However, it can become a trap when I get locked into trying to fix or solve a perceived problem. If the problem is rooted in an old hurt, old feelings, no amount of analysis to find a solution will help. There is no solution but to empathize, to have compassion, to hold and allow, to witness. These are the paths through the stuck places, because allowing is so much more powerful than we have been led to believe.

We live in a world that acknowledges the critical role empathy plays in bonding, learning and connectedness. It is foundation for how we are able to care for ourselves and others. It softens our hearts and lets us listen better in the midst of a conflict. It helps us to see the other point of view and modulate our behaviour or tone when we are possibly hurting someone. It is a great way out of the power struggles that are part of parenting and other relationships.

What is glaringly lacking in our world is the practice of developing empathy.  We need to create cultural codes that celebrate and cultivate empathy and compassion. How do we do that?  If empathy is so important, ask yourself whether is it reflected in our institutions like our education and justice systems. It is clearly part of Sesame Street, but is it part of Wall Street?  Are our parenting books focused on how to empathize with your children, and thereby educate and empower their emotions and communications? Are the parenting styles that you see around you based on an empathetic practice of seeing the world from the child’s perspective and understanding how helpless and caught they are in the adult world? Do we see children as fundamentally good, loveable and loving, or as needing to be taught to be good, via discipline, control and punishment?

In a way, empathy is linked to safety. We can empathize when we feel safe in ourselves. Empathy is a path to safety and healing from trauma. Empathy is the root of compassion, the ground from which it can grow.  There are simple practices that foster this valuable state of mind, which we can learn, teach and practice.

TRY THIS:

list empathy exercises…

 

What is trauma?

I think that in childhood we are meant to rest, like a bird in the hand; we are trusting and vulnerable until we’re ready to fly and we can launch ourselves into the world. We still need to land somewhere, now and again. We need to feel safe enough to come in for a landing. With trauma, we fledge too young, we fly up and out of our bodies and operate on top of so much distress.

There is a marked difference between legal  definitions of trauma and  the therapeutic definitions.  And within the theraputic  dialogue, there are those who are interested in abstract discussion and studies to define a global academic subject and those with clients who they want to help.

In another category entirely are those who by healing  themselves have become experts in the field, what has come to be known  as “experts by experience.”  (A fabulous read if you are more interested in this topic is Agnes’ Jacket.) This is a valid ground for expertise because it’s based in empirical research: experiential sensory engagement with processes that either  do or don’t help us. To some extent that’s universal, and to a great extent, it’s personal: “what has helped you, and will it help me?” As survivors we are the authority on what works best for us and we have a lot to say about the whole subject of what’s helpful. When we study and practice in this way and we listen to other survivors carefully, then we build a body of theory based in a sturdy empirical framework.  What we are interested in are practical applications; we want healing that works for real people who are suffering and struggling. We want to help those who are wanting to live well in the midst of it all.  We want to empower survivors to define the terms and territory from the viewpoint of actual experience rather than imposed abstract theory. THis is empirical research conducted by the middle of the night warriors who need to know how to get through the darkness and live to see another day. What works from this perspective?  What gets you through the night? What functionally works to help a survivor to live and fight towards a full passionate zestful life? what helps you to open to trust and love in any given moment, in spite of the fact of your historical hurts?

I come from the standpoint of having had to heal myself. I have been my own guinea pig, my own best experiment. My motivation is caring and my desire is to educate as many as possible about the whole spectrum of trauma. I have studied how trauma affects every system in the body and how the body comes to healing. I’ve read oodles of books on the subject, but the most essential wisdom I have has come from my own journey and from the direct experience of other survivors with whom I have walked a thousand miles.

So then, what is trauma?

Trauma is unresolved hurt. Whereas there are degrees of trauma, with some being admittedly more severe than others, any kind of chronic or one-time events that hurt us, without our being able to resolve them, are traumatic. Trauma is experienced as life-threatening because our body-mind is overwhelmed. It affects our day-to day ability to protect or take care of ourselves. It leads us to do things we don’t really want to do, to not be able to set healthy limits, say no, or even at times to say  yes to the things we really want. We get stuck replaying the past. We may not remember our biggest trauma’s because the mind needs to protect itself. But our bodies turn out to be a reliable guide, a kind of indelible map of our lives, sometimes speaking in symptoms, and sometimes in life-dynamics. Our bodies do not lie and they are a guide to the deepest truths of our lives.

Events that are intensely painful, humiliating, and frightening are overwhelming. This kind of trauma overloads your body systems, resulting in an automatic “shut-down” or freezing. There are specific ways that your body systems organize themselves to protect you in traumatic events. Fight and flight is one aspect of the sympathetic nervous system activated in a dangerous situation. Chronically dangerous and unpredictable environments set up a pattern of vigilance in the nervous (and other) systems, resulting in a permanently “on” setting. You feel that danger is everywhere and there is no safety. The consequences of this are trouble resting, eating, digesting, etc.

In extreme cases of traumatic abuse, the nervous system and fluids in the body freeze and we “play dead” in order to survive the  event. When we are forced into this freezing/disappearing, we literally cannot process the overwhelming sensations and images, so the body stores the information at a cellular level. This freezing and re-routing of information protects the heart from overload. Everyone know the movie-image of an older woman clutching at her heart in shock and quickly taking her heart pills. For a child being traumatized, the same danger applies, and the body has ways of protecting the heart.

Every aspect of the traumatic event is stored in the body-mind. Often with trauma, memory is affected, because when the system is overloaded, and information must be re-routed to local cells, the event is not “processed” fully by the Central Nervous System. Because of this, people often have “no memory” or limited/occluded memory of trauma. Along with the details of the trauma, the body stores the thoughts and coping strategies that helped us survive the event.

An example. When someone is working with a memory, they may first feel spacey and numb. They often have intense sensation and emotions that are hugely out of proportion to the actual events in present time. These are a clue to part of the memory. In addition to what the body does to survive, the conscious mind had a few strategies. By repeating a formula or  story, we repressed the events that as a child we could not process.

For example a client says:  “On one memory that I worked on, I suddenly felt nauseous and all I could see was yellow with little brown roses. I felt love/hate for yellow and never could wear the color without literally feeling ill. As I worked on the memory, I realized that to survive the pain of the abuse, I stared at my yellow shirt which had been a favorite, using the fabric as a focus to block out all other sensation. Once I’d worked through the memory, I no longer was in the awkward position of being essentially allergic to a color!”

This same principle applies to so many aspects of life that get trapped in memory; we begin to avoid living fully because everything causes us to feel poorly and we don’t know why.

Trauma affects us on every level. Our body systems, perceptions, movement patterns, thoughts, emotions and energy all mobilize to help us survive. They form around the traumatic event,  resulting in avoidance patterns, compulsions, phobias, etc. Part of our challenge is to see the results of trauma clearly and lovingly, for they are the seeds of the resolution that is healing. Each pattern, compulsion or aversion, each strong feeling or numb spot, is a coded story, full of information waiting to be revealed in a safe process of healing.

Fight and flight are a common response to traumatic events, but if one can fight back, run and hide and get away, then the event is often not patterned into trauma; it gets resolved. If one is not able to fight, or flee, there is an earlier aspect of the brain that activates a neurological reflex of submission and freezing. This is the most common aspect of trauma that needs help to resolve. Coming out of freezing is critical to recovery.

Trauma shows.

Somehow, eventually, it catches up to us. Whether in self-sabotage, mental illness, physical illness, phobias, avoidance patterns, nightmares, anxiety, depression, compulsions, or patterns that keep us from thriving, trauma shows up and tells its story until someone listens to it and helps its resolution.  When that happens, healing is inevitable and  spontaneous; it allow us to begin to come in for a landing, to feel safe, empowered and sane enough to make the changes in our lives that really matter.

TRY THIS:

Point of contact exercise – getting out your landing gear

lie on the floor. be sure you are warm and comfortable. Get cushions or whatever you need to fully relax your body.

What do you notice?

wherever you feel a connection to the floor, you are feeing compression. wherever you feel that compression notice that you are being held up by the earth/floor,

and let your weight release more fully into those points of contact. Any compressive point of contact can be used to feel where your limits are, to feel supported by the ground.

as you release into the support, feel the earth rising up to meet you. the more you practice this loop, the more you can yeild into the embrace of the earth and the more deeply inside your body-mind you will feel that you are receiving support. Let yourself take it in and be nourished by it.

can you completely surrender your body to the embrace of the earth?

can you feel yourself, lying on this planet spinning through space, held here by the force of gravity?

can you feel that the place your body rests belongs to you? that you are at home on your own piece of the ground? It’s like your own country or territory and any where your body rests can be home to you. you have direct access to ground, grounding and unconditional support. by practicing it, you claim your right to exist.

VARIATIONS: to intensify the compression, use pillows on top of yourself: pack them wherever you want and feel how you are protected and contained within them.

get a partner and ask them to gently press the cushions into you so that you feel more support and container.

Once you have felt enough compression you may want space to move – allow automatic movement to arise spontaneously if that feels good. trust your body’s impulses.

Explanation: This practice is based on reflexes and developmental principles that underlie how we embrace, release into an embrace, feel connected and come into full resting.  It builds tone in the body tissues and calms anxiety.  Trauma causes us to over come those reflexes and over develop the ones that underlie how we leave the earth, how we rise up and take flight. It is deceptively simple; you are just lying there, relaxing.  But, in so doing, you are telling every cell in your body that you are finally safe to rest. Your Nervous System is still going so fast, so you need to take time to slow  it down and let the ground hold you. THe more you feel held, by anything, the more your brain will understand that you are finally safe. You can do this when you are finding it hard to settle, when you are buzzing and can’t relax. Or you can do it to build and inner sense of yourself. You build a deeper presence by feeling supported by the world.