I was recently interviewed by Harvard-trained Guy McPherson of the Trauma Therapist Podcast. I highly recommend his creative endeavor, which you can check out here. He is truly inspired, seeing that people first starting out on the road to being effective therapists can and should draw on the wisdom of others who were once beginners too.
Listen to my interview here.
When children witness the Drama Triangle being played by their family members in childhood, and it becomes their model for relating, they miss out on opportunities to develop healthy relational skills, and real problem solving skills and this chaotic dynamic becomes the Inner Blueprint for dealing with stress. The Weinholds say that the Drama Triangle is the primary cause of childhood trauma, and I’m with them. “For children who experience or watch this dynamic, their brains file situation-specific pictures, words, thoughts and feelings related to Drama Triangle experiences. This is the core definition of Trauma.” Plenty of research is also showing that early childhood stress and unmet relational needs are the foundation for trauma in general, but I’ll talk more about that in a later post.
When an individual of any age lives in an environment that the Drama Triangle creates, the nervous system responds by flooding the system with stress hormones which effectively put the body on the ready for fight or flight. Disconnecting from one’s feelings is commonly a part of this response. And since there is no “end to the crisis” in sight (in the absence of the skills needed to exit the Drama Triangle) the body does not return to its relaxed, post-crisis state, and natural resolution to the crisis does not occur.
It takes willingness, awareness, and commitment to acquire the skills necessary to help the body return to its natural state of equilibrium. And removing the violence and chaos that the Drama Triangle creates are the important first steps.
I am so pleased to announce:
This Online Course is based on the Drama Triangle and how it can play out inside us (with the different parts of the triangle represented by different parts of us in our minds: The Victim, The Rescuer & The Persecutor). This 6-week course will break the Drama Triangle down into simple terms so that it can be more easily understood. The skills you take away are designed to help stop inner abuse and self sabotage in its tracks.
During the course, participants will learn how to replace the Drama Triangle with its magical counterpart, the Empowerment Dynamic, to help overcome early relational trauma. They will also gain a framework for better knowing when and how to trust themselves, which naturally impacts knowing when and how to safely trust other people.
Depending on your level of enrollment, you can take the course alone, receive two one-hour Skype sessions to support your work, or purchase the Deluxe Bundle which includes two one-hour personal coaching sessions and e-mail support between sessions.
The class includes a series of lessons, visual diagrams, quizzes, assignments, a sharing forum, and other materials to supplement learning, facilitate growth, heal early relational trauma and remove barriers to the forging of safe and lasting connections.
Fill out this brief survey if you’d like to know more.
Closer Than You Think, by Trina Brunk is a practical guide to knowing one’s self and dealing with a whole host of existential questions that come with living as humans in these times. She writes with clarity, wisdom and flow, telling the truth about intimacy and our relationship with the beloved.
But besides being practical, and serving as a guide, this lovely piece is a song – the soundtrack to the soul’s coming back into the body, after a lifetime of exile – and finally learning to stay there. Enjoy this quote:
The skills to cultivate are not self-denial and heroism, but depth of presence, patience, and staying connected in the face of suffering, in the face of accepting that we can’t always make it better for those who suffer.
The magic and directness of this book told my story, and I suspect it will tell pieces of yours as well, in a way you have not heard it before. It connected me more firmly with the comfort that is available to all of us, in the form of higher and often less apparent forms of guidance, assistance, and unconditional love.
Chapter 6 made me weep, but first it invited me to read it twice more. Trina’s book, Closer Than You Think, is a wild, exhilarating ride. It will have you holding on to your seat. So. Much. Fun.
Buy her book here!
Various similarities stand out among happy, successful couples. These things are reflected in great literature and are assumed to be what normal relationships are made of. Happy couples regard their unions with mutuality, deep commitment, kindness, and respect. The culture they create together is playful, safe and nourishing. In his important book, Wired For Love: How Understanding Your Partner’s Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship, Stan Tatkin refers to healthy attachment as a tether. He says, “Partners who create and maintain a tether to one another experience more personal safety and security, have more energy, take more risks and experience overall less stress than couples who do not.”
This tethering is the idea I’d like to talk about first, here, as the primary connection or bond that can be created between partners. In his book, Tatkin describes what he calls a “couple bubble,” in which a couple can agree to certain principles which guide their attitudes, behaviors and priorities, and actually allow them to “build synergy in [their] relationships, such that [they] are able to operate together in ways that are greater than if [they] each lived as essentially separate individuals.”
While it’s hard to argue the advantages of such a theoretical safe haven, my concern about such an agreement is that so many individuals who have experienced relational trauma 1) do not bring their full, embodied selves to the relationship because they do not know how, and 2) do not have the social or emotional development necessary to agree on the principles and comport themselves accordingly. One need not look far to see the relationships that create more stress than they relieve; that leave their members doubting their value, feeling unsure, unsafe, and unlovable. The elusive bond is not experienced, and the mental constructs that support it cannot be held in place. The couples who find themselves in this unfortunate situation match or mirror one another in their unpreparedness; neither of them can understand what is actually going on, and so it is beyond their capability to support one another and create this safe bubble. It goes without saying that the environment of these unions is anything but safe.
In this important book, Stan Tatkin distinguishes between various attachment styles, which can describe the different kinds of dances people engage in in their relationships. ANCHORS, he says, are securely attached. They readily attach and are able to navigate healthy relationships. Characteristics of the two different insecurely or anxiously attached styles are bulleted below. See if either of these styles describes you.
As even Tatkin points out, to date there is no evidence that being in relationship is inherently better than being single. For those of us who are “islands” or “waves,” and being in relationship is actually more stressful than not, it is probable that the couple bubble is not our best option. We’ll look at how we might use certain pieces of the idea, however, and implement them in our other relationships so as to achieve some of the benefits that lifelong partnership provides, but not to us – yet.
I’m not denying that there is great benefit to be had in engaging the muscles that are required to maintain a couple bubble. People universally feel and act on the need to be tethered, and this could be where your greatest potential for growth lies. And I’ll submit, as Tatkin points out, if we do not experience the need to be in an exclusive relationship when we are generative and bodily fit, the need to be dependent on at least one other person becomes more obvious and pressing as we near the end of life. But for others, remaining single, at least for a time, may be their potential for greatest satisfaction and growth.
For many of us, the hard-to-ignore drive to pair up seems to have a biological component, and in many ways, social forces compel us, as well, to be in exclusive, partnered relationships. The enticement is obvious. The benefits of being part of a well-bonded partnership include:
For those of you who are already in committed relationships, by all means, read Stan Tatkin’s book, Wired for Love, and create a couple bubble. Working toward this kind of relationship has the potential for profound healing and growth, even if it is never fully achieved.
But people have unique needs when it comes to safety. What many of us could benefit from understanding, at a deeper level, is that our relationships in adulthood are completely elective. And it is up to us to decide what works for us. If we have tried, and have not experienced safety and comfort in intimate relationships, it is okay to admit that. And it is okay to change up the strategy.
Maybe for some of you out there, the idea of intimacy as a trigger is a new one. If this is the case for you, it is important to become aware of any strategies you may have unconsciously employed to protect yourself from getting too close. Whether growing in your capacity to experience intimacy with another is your goal, or you just want to become more connected with your fully embodied self and your heart’s desires, self acceptance is the path. Accepting yourself exactly where you are is the crucial first step. What follows is a list of the covert strategies to avoid intimacy I have encountered in myself and through my work with clients (they are strategies because they are used to hide or distract us from our fear, i.e., fear of dependency or vulnerability):
I propose that those of us who have been relationally challenged take Tatkin’s idea of a couple bubble and use it as a version of our own personal boundary.[1] Inside this personal boundary, we can commit to forming a safe and reliable partnership with ourselves. In all the world, we are the one person we know who will be right there with us when we are scared, in pain or excited. But we have to make the decision to be there for and support ourselves. Then, with the power and wisdom of our most evolved self, we can agree to work toward an internal culture of safety and comfort. The language we can adopt might look like this:
In Tatkin’s bubble, the emphasis is less about helping yourself and more about helping your partner. In this (intrapersonal) version of the bubble, the emphasis is on being sensitive to the parts of you that have been chronically dissociated, or the parts that you have kept pressed out of awareness. When you have a more holistic relationship with yourself, you will learn to benefit from the wisdom, vision and gifts of these parts that you have been dismissing. In this way, not only will these formerly exiled parts be accepted and cared for, but they will help you understand your needs and make them easier to meet.
Everyone experiences stress in a different way, Tatkin explains. He recommends studying your partner and knowing the three or four things that make him or her feel bad, so you can better care for your partner. I propose that we invest the time necessary to know ourselves this well. Study yourself to understand the three or four things that make you feel bad. And then do something about it. Taking this just a short step further, we can actually work toward reducing or eliminating these four things through effective therapy, journaling, or good self care.
“It’s kind of like running a three-legged race,” Tatkin says. “If one person falls, the other can’t go anywhere. So you want to work as a team and hold each other up.” When we throw our body, or “unacceptable” parts of us under the bus, we end up paralyzed, malfunctioning and stymied. That’s why it’s important for us to include our bodies in the conversation and be compassionate with all our parts as we learn about their needs and work toward full integration.
The safety zone, or couple bubble Tatkin helps couples develop to ensure safety in their relationship is a “mutually constructed membrane cocoon, or womb that holds a couple together and protects each partner from outside elements.” Anyone can benefit from developing a sense of committed connectedness with themselves. It is my opinion that this is a necessary prerequisite to experiencing satisfying long-term relationships outside of us. Here are a few things that need to happen to keep an “intrapersonal bubble” healthy and intact.
As an insecurely attached child, I learned it was safer not to trust, and so my needs for belonging, safety, and support were not well met. As an adult, I’ve found the idea of allowing another person to earn my respect, trust, and affection over time extremely seductive. And through much trial and error, I have learned how important it is to stay conscious and connected to my felt sense, to pay attention to my physical responses to people and situations, and to refuse to turn a blind eye to things that are not acceptable to me. I have learned to catch myself when I inadvertently hand my power over to another person, to re-member my power, and choose again. I am learning to separate the seduction of a vague or unrealistic promise from the steady groundedness of my own felt sense, and to take great pleasure in knowing that this is what home and safety is for me.
Another question Tatkin raises is whether it is possible to love yourself before someone loves you. He points out that we learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because someone has taken care of us. Self-esteem and self-worth, he says, are developed through our contact with other people. He is correct. But it is not always from inside a couple relationship that we can get these things. In fact, under certain circumstances, those partner relationships are so unsafe that the overall effect is extreme damage to the self-esteem and self-worth, in which case, we get it where we can, whether it be from authors of self-help books, the Internet, literature or less intimate friendships. But get it we must, until healthy relating is a norm rather than that elusive panacea that continually escapes us.
Whether we can benefit from being in an exclusive relationship is not always an easy decision to make. For some individuals, remaining single is the best option because they are wired in a way that makes committed relationships way too stressful. What keeps people trying is the hope that experience and healing can change such wiring so that the individual can benefit from the safety and comfort of a committed union.
Here is my current checklist for relationship readiness:
Tatkin quote: “Couples who are in it for the long haul know how to play and fight well, remain fearlessly confident in the resilience of their relationship, and don’t try to avoid conflict.” Tatkin says that while self-interests are a necessary given, they exist as part of the greater good of the relationship, such that, “when a fight occurs, nobody loses and everybody wins.”
Smart fighting, Tatkin says, is “about wrestling with your partner, engaging without hesitation or avoidance, and at the same time being willing to relax your own positon. You go back and forth with each other, until the two of you come up with something that’s good for both of you. You take what you each bring to the table and, with it, create something new that provides mutual relief and satisfaction.”
Emerging from a life marked by relational trauma, we each have our automatic response: the one that worked for us when we were young. For me it was freeze and eventual flight. Having defaulted to the freeze response so automatically, I missed out on the opportunity to experiment with and develop the other three possible responses that would have provided me with an effective fight reflex, that might have allowed me to maintain equilibrium in my relationships (the other stress responses include the cry for help, fight, and flight).
John Gottman, of the Gottman Institute and Stan Tatkin agree that contempt is one of the biggest threats to relationships. Contempt includes expression of disgust, disrespect, condescension, and sarcasm. These attitudes, when directed toward the self, threaten an individual’s self-esteem and sense of self worth and severely undermine an individual’s interactions with intimate others. Whether you want to heal your relational trauma from childhood or nurture a deep and authentic relationship with another person, you owe it to yourself to immediately eliminate all threatening behavior. Think about this next list in terms of how you treat yourself (in a stressful situation) and past unsuccessful relationships. Think also about relationships you witnessed as you were growing up. Threatening behavior includes:
Finally, lack of physical contact contributes to actual, measurable health problems. In a study of baby rhesus monkeys, back in 1975, James Prescott found a stronger drive for physical comfort than for food. These needs are the same for people, and they continue into adulthood. Directly and consistently addressing one’s need for touch is an important way to clear away the fog of the seduction of pairing off before one is actually ready. And if one is aware, he or she can take steps to meet this physical need. According to Tatkin, a minimum of 10 minutes of close physical contact every day can make a measurable difference when it comes to stress management. If you are not partnered, you can absolutely benefit from cuddling with yourself, or even cradling yourself as you would a baby. Hugging, holding or being held, dancing, exercises such as yoga and tai chi, being given or receiving a massage, and so on are all ways you can nurture and care for your precious body and let it know you appreciate it. Notice the effect any amount of physical touch and conscious, loving attention has on your level of stress and on your physical health. If you can slow down enough, you will notice that such care and indulgence is not only enjoyable, but that it also serves to help your body heal, and as a preventive means to reduce the effects of stress and maintain your health.
In case you were wondering about the re-posts, I recently migrated my blog, and in the process lost a lot of material. I’m going back to reconstruct the articles that seem relevant. This one is from July 4, 2016. thank you for your interest!
[1] I teach a 5-week class on boundaries called Boundaries 101: Learning to Recognize, Honor and Communicate Your Personal Limits. You can get your copy of the study guide here.
Have you ever been here?
Nobody ever gives me anything I want. I do so much for others, but it never comes back. Why do I feel so needy? Why do I always give and never receive?
I have. It recently occurred to me that I had a blind spot, and that blind spot involved blocking the gifts of others, because of an imagined sense of debt that came along with receiving things others actually had and wanted to give me. I was afraid of “implications.” I was afraid of the “obligation” to reciprocate. In the process, I often turned down the kit and caboodle. I unknowingly rejected what was unconditionally given by others. All along others were interested in sharing what they had. All along I kept my distance because of fear. And also because I had a fixed, rigid attachment to a particular thing or a specific action being delivered in a particular way.
Then I decided I wanted to be happy more than I wanted to be in control. An underlying current of resentment, and wanting to be right about a past hurt had kept me from opening to ever needing anything from anybody again. And I had even forgotten what had hurt me in the first place. Still, my body held the resentment valiently in place as an armor to protect me.
With the re-awakening of my body, I realize what it has been doing for me all these years. I appreciate the gift, and release the rest. It is not necessary to keep anything unwanted that comes with a gift. If I imagine strings attached, or if there are strings attached, they are not mine unless I accept them. Any conditions that have not been spelled out are Not Real. They are only real if the person they belong to speaks them; puts them on the table, so they can be considered. As long as they are just lurking, they are not real. They are imagined. They are not part of the transaction. We are not respecting our boundaries or the boundaries of others when we “intuit” or honor strings over the expressed intention of the giver.
If we imagine debt and accept it as our obligation along with the gift, the transaction is soured, and the gift loses its value. It becomes instead a transaction of confusion and chaos in our lives.
Our challenge is to practice accepting openheartedly the gifts that others are giving, knowing that gifts often come in shapes and sizes that are unfamiliar to us. Accept the gifts given to you in the spirit of generosity they were intended. You have an opportunity to graciously take them into your heart. Recognize them for what they are. Recognize their inherent beauty and uniqueness. Feel them. Experience gratitude for the spirit of the gift and the vulnerability of the giver in the act of giving. Do not reject them out of hand.
Here is another idea: Other people are not my source of stuff. The gift is actually not the item or the service at all; it is the giving of it. Any tangible byproduct that results from the transaction is yours, and you are free to do with it what you wish.
What if the stuff of a gift were just a symbol; a token. And the real gift, always, were the connection and the energy that moves between people? What if the only real gifts were the 5 A’s of mutual love and personal fulfillment that David Richo talks about in his book, Daring to Trust?
Attention ● Acceptance ● Affection ● Allowing ● Appreciation
I am eating ice cream off a stick, tasting the sweetness and feeling the coldness with only half of my mouth. I put my attention on tasting with the “awake” side with double focus. The chocolate shell is melting quickly, but I have a plate to catch it when it falls, here at my table in a small ice cream shop in Santa Tere, Guadalajara, where I can watch people walking by on the sidewalk. The air is hot and dry. I recall how my mouth dried so quickly when I was sitting in the dentist’s chair, under her bright light, less than an hour ago.
I am thinking about so many things. About comparing; the energy of comparing. What happens when I am afraid? I analyze and judge. For me, it’s automatic: When I am afraid, I see people in terms of their threat to me. What I’ve recently realized is that I’ve found “safety” in being “better” in some way. Growing up, us children divided ourselves into two groups: “the good ones,” and “the bad ones.” At least that’s how I made sense of the world in my childhood. Mind you, it wasn’t that I was “good” but that I was in that group because nobody knew how bad I was. Just me. And often staying out of harm’s way meant maintaining or nurturing this divide. Now that I think of it, I am definitely responsible for perpetuating this idea among my siblings.
Problem is, the “safety” I achieved from this strategy wasn’t safe at all. It might have protected me from disapproval, physical blows and contempt that my sisters received when they expressed dissent, but in terms of relating with people, it put me at a very unfortunate and decades-long disadvantage. My already stressed-out body responded to this constant inner chatter (analyzing and comparing myself to others) by bracing, warding off confrontation, and maintaining a steady flow of stress hormones. Judging and dividing my siblings left me with a sense of uneasiness in groups, an inability to let my guard down with people who were different from me, to feel close or to take in the goodness that other human beings have to offer, through their very essence.
Prettier, thinner, more deserving, etc. In my adult life it has remained mostly unconscious, but it has never left me, particularly in social situations where I do not feel I have enough control. It has been very, very present: “I am safe if I am on the right side of this divide – you over there; me over here.” That’s how my attention was oriented.
As I gain tools, and a general understanding that judging and comparing are actually things that signal that I’m experiencing vulnerable emotions (feelings I had learned to automatically disconnect from), I’m vigorously exploring healthier alternatives.
This habit of comparing has affected all my relationships. I’ve found safety in partners who are “good enough” to make me look good but not quite as “right” as me. I found comfort in relationships where my opinions were the ones that “counted” (in my mind, for one reason or another). That required – you guessed it – me feeling somehow “one up.” I wasn’t at all confident in my ability to advocate for myself or negotiate. And I had no concept of what it might be like to coexist peaceably alongside someone with whom I disagreed (who must be wrong, of course).
Moving through life like this did nothing but perpetuate my anxiety and fear about my place in the world. Judging and comparing others always does this funny boomerang thing; fear of being judged and coming up short is always the result.
I did not know that I was chronically afraid, that I felt threatened by the “betterness” of other people, much less how to turn that around.
My lifestyle now offers me a time warp through which, rather than living afraid, I now Iive more consciously and at peace. And my body, as a result, is learning to relax as my senses come back online. I follow what gives me pleasure, choose what I desire, filled with gratitude for all that I have. Since I live with a nervous system that is no longer on high alert, I am more aware of what there is to appreciate in this sacred moment, and in the other beings around me.
There’s a profound difference between seeing others through a lens of guardedness and anxiety and removing that lens and just allowing pure sensory information to enter, no longer needing to be “one up” somehow. But this distinction is – more than you might imagine – a product of the nervous system. What has happened to me in the past four years was a subtle but life-changing shift. It has affirmed in me a deep knowing that I don’t need to pretend to be anything I’m not. That I am safe, as perfectly imperfect as I am. That all is well. That regardless of what happens, I will be okay. None of this was possible when I was constantly analyzing my safety based on how I measured up to those around me. That kept my body tense and poised for battle.
In my new life, there is time to do my emotional work. It is safe to feel what I feel and know what I know. Though I am alone, I know that I am safe and have adequate support. Alone, what I enjoy and what I want matters immensely. I am curious about what amuses and entertains me, and it certainly varies from day to day. And my interactions with others is based more on what I like and what leaves me feeling affirmed and inspired.
I’m thinking about the other evening that I spent with my sister, Tracy. It was a very strange visit. I’d had a long day. I was returning from the lake, where I pack in a lot of socializing and play. Back in Guadalajara with Tracy, I noticed my faculties failing me. I literally felt “retarded,” kind of stunned, not at all able to express myself or even find simple words that I needed. Her being four years older, there are a lot of things about Tracy that can trigger me. But this time, while it is true that I was triggered and my body was not acting right, I did not go into an emotional flashback like I have during longer visits with her.
I had been looking forward to seeing her before she left on her trip to Texas. Throughout our visit I was trying to understand what was happening, holding off on any self-judgment or despair about how stupid I was in comparison to her. I was able to just notice the sluggishness of my mind. I didn’t blame Tracy for directing her attention outward and interacting with others in her fluent Spanish from time to time as the evening wore on or for moving at a vibration that was too high/fast for me. She was excited about her upcoming trip and her travels are always interesting to me. Besides, it was a short enough visit, and Tracy is super kind, so I didn’t feel judged or even embarrassed, really.
As usual, my relationship with Tracy gives me so much to chew on. Spending time with her always provides me with information that I can use to grow. I “got through” the visit continuing to hope that I could rebound and be my fully-functioning before it was over, but I didn’t. My brain didn’t come back online until after I left. I did leave fully connected to my sense of humor, my curiosity, and a knowing that I would eventually recover, and that Tracy loved me unconditionally.
Among the triggers that tripped that night were: Being the little sister. In our family, Tracy has always been the one who reaches out for what she wants. That hasn’t come so naturally for me. Tracy is in full swing with her vibrant, exciting career, a career that she declared so many years ago when she went to school for journalism in her early twenties. Tracy is many years ahead of me in terms of language acquisition (Español), so our visit threw me back to being two (when she was six) and she got real good at telling everyone what I meant, thought and wanted. Or so I hear. Tracy’s home here in Mexico has taken shape rapidly; a reflection of the amount of time she has lived in Mexico and the many harrowing and costly trips she has made across the border with trucks, cars and caravans. She actually has furniture.
With my sense of humor intact, I could recognize, that evening, that there really was no competition involved here (and there never was), no one up or one down. I could also recognize that I was not functioning at my best, and that it wasn’t her fault. Some days I am likely to return, momentarily, to my habitual way of comparing and judging. I apologize in advance. But when I do, I more quickly remember that it is no more than a red flag to alert me to my own vulnerable feelings.
And as I do my emotional work, my body relaxes. Intrinsic to this growth journey I’m on is taking responsibility for who I am, getting clearer about what’s important to me, and through staying connected with my entire system, returning again and again to conscious awareness of not just what is okay with me and what isn’t, but what I like, what I need and what I don’t. The effect this has had on my nervous system is enormous, and that evening with Tracy gives me evidence of this.
When I am physically relaxed, novelty is the spice of life, and not a threat. In this state of receptiveness I more readily greet the unknown with playfulness, laughter, and delight. I don’t have to be perfect to be good enough. Recovering from developmental trauma involves relaxing the body so that the world can be experienced as the rich and delicious place that it is. Each of us brings our own gifts, our own essence to share in the world. We are surrounded by inspiring, talented, brilliant and interesting people. Not one of us more or less than the other. Just different. People are not for comparing.
My birthday is February 4. The week before my birthday this year, the ladder to the roof went away. It’s happened before. The landlord is renovating an apartment on the other side of the street. It always comes back, though. Eventually.
But it’s been several weeks now, and that’s given me a chance to notice all the things I give up when I can’t get to my roof in the mornings. Firstly and most obviously are my exercises. Without access to my roof, I start the day sedentary and don’t seem to be able to overcome the inertia of that kind of start to my days. I also really missed the little magical things that always seemed to happen on the roof while watching the sun coming up, watching its movement patterns and the visual show it puts on every morning, whether I take the time to notice it or not.
I had spent some time with my sister Tracy on my birthday, and I had been telling her about the ladder situation. She had suggested I buy my own ladder. Well that might make sense to her, I thought, with her money flow and low tolerance for inertia. But I was saving up my money. What about belly dance classes, braces? Pocket money for my upcoming trip to Cuba? And besides, there was just no way I wanted to add to my already too-large collection of belongings that one has to move with them from place to place. I am, after all, a traveler. I could hunker down. The ladder would come back.
So here I was, this morning, with still no access to my roof, when I began to look around at the things I had in my house that I might be able to stack up so that I could climb up and out through my patio. Bingo.
Returning to the sacred time I spend with myself. It’s all available to me once more. All I have to do is decide that it’s what I really want. The sky, exercise, the sunrise, nature, my beloved – all available to me. I had allowed myself to disconnect from the sweetness of that part of my day. Unlike Tracy, I had learned to accept too easily that things I want just aren’t available.
What might have made this morning different, however, was the mounting of irrefutable evidence. I was better off when I could connect. Doing without was causing me a level of discomfort and annoyance that I was willing to notice and tend to (along with that spark of an idea that came from Tracy).
Today is a day of real celebration. My happiness actually matters to me. A lot. I am creating new neural pathways in my brain. I need not settle for a life that does not provide my most essential needs. I’m now in the market for a new place to live. It will have easy and regular access to the skyline. It won’t have two jynormous media signal towers that keep me from sleeping well. In the meantime, I am aware. I will not as easily forget, when my connections to source are taken away, that I am powerful and that I can restore them.
I have resources, and I desire to stay connected to the sweetness that is my source, my beloved. Whatever is necessary to maintain that connection is available to me, even if it means I need to move the furniture. I need not accept disconnection, and Source, in her way, is happy to support me in my efforts to reconnect.
Yesterday, while listening to an online class by Bonnie Badenoch, PhD, LMFT, where she is talking about how we need other people to regulate our emotions (our whole lives, not just as infants and small children), I gleaned a very concise description of the functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Being an EMDR therapist, my ears perked up. But she took it further than that. In her description, the emphasis she placed was on the relationship between the two hemispheres (EMDR is a therapy that successfully integrates left and right hemispheres in order to resolve trauma that has remained frozen, often for decades). Early in her talk (which is free and available online, she points out that effective therapy follows the client, allowing the healing to happen on its own (which is what both EMDR and CranioSacral therapy do). Here is a simplified version of what she said.
|
Right Hemisphere |
Left Hemisphere |
|
Sensitivity to suffering Attending to what is going on in the relational realm In the present moment (what’s happening between us?) Staying with the unfolding process EMERGENCE DEEP CONNECTION (with nature and/or with another) DEEP WARMTH BOTH – AND Can handle PARADOX Values Individuality, Uniqueness, Connection WE Meaning > Happiness |
Offers distance from emotions Provides Stability/Steadiness Takes what we receive from the other hemisphere and disassembles it so that it can be used to create systems that we can rely on. It has to freeze things in order to take them apart and use them. TASK > RELATIONSHIPS Can provide WISDOM (Why does this make complete sense?) EITHER – OR Values JUDGMENT Creates Protocols and Frameworks I Thinks everything will turn out okay (but there is an underlying paranoia) There is no meaning (except for what I WANT) |
I want to take this a step further and suggest that adequate self parenting, which is necessary to overcome early relational trauma, could be thought of in terms of the relationship between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. And if you wanted to get really crazy, between the Inner Feminine and the Inner Masculine (which has been referred to – I suspect – as the Divine Marriage).
Which brings me to this point at which I want to share a recent experience with you. In a moment of inspiration several months ago, I drew (with the help of a collection of slumped postures online) a profile of myself that I had projected onto another person, who I then felt slightly judgmental toward. It occurred to me that I might put the image out on Facebook, tagging a few friends who I thought might have knowledge or resources to “read” that posture to see what it had to say (I said it was a client I needed help with). I had been doing tai chi and listening to Trina’s song, This Simplicity, when I heard the lyrics, “What the soul is longing for, and what this body needs.” Everything stopped while I wrote down these words, which I used, along with a very practical, physical question, What happened to this body from a physiological perspective, and why does she hold herself this way? The questions I asked came from two different places, and from the responses I got on Facebook, two different answers emerged. To what can we attribute these two different approaches? Before Bonnie Badenoch, I would have, hands down, said Inner Masculine and Inner Feminine. Now, if I need to, I can say Left Hemisphere and Right Hemisphere. If you’d like to see what emerged, use the links to read more (you can enter through the portal that feels most comfortable to you)!
I’d love to hear which portal you used, and what you think of the material you find there! If you are curious about what your soul is longing for and what your body needs, we could try continuing the Facebook conversation. As always, I’d love to hear from you!
I’m watching the sky light up this morning. I begin watching well before the sun comes up (6:45 is early enough, actually), so that I can be a witness to the contrast of the darkness, where the stars are still visible. It’s nippy out, and I have leg warmers, fluffy socks, and three layers up above. I’m wearing a fluffy purple muffler to keep my neck warm. I’ve finished my tea and I’m at a point now where I might usually go and start my stretches because nothing is really beckoning me to continue watching the pre-sunrise sky in the east. Then I notice two little groups of birds flying with each other. They are flying in tandem. They make sort of a figure 8 in the sky; they float toward and through each other and then out again in this rhythm where they are repeating the pattern over and over and over again, flying with each other. It seems to me that they are playing. As they continue this pattern, it’s kind of hypnotic to watch, and interesting too because they know what they are doing and they are doing it purposefully, and for some reason that I can only imagine.
I’m still facing east and it strikes me that these birds are right there, in my line of vision, and I keep watching. It seems to me that there are no other little groups of birds doing anything anywhere else. But this little group of birds has positioned itself right in front of me. And I just continue to watch them until they merge and become one group. And that one group of birds continues flying in my line of sight back and forth and around. And there are little outsiders, and I watch how they have to fly extra hard to catch up, from time to time, to avoid falling out of the group, and the distance they have to fly to stay in the formation is bigger. But they do their part to continue to be with the group, and the group continues to function like a group and it just keeps moving and dancing and doing what it does.
I think about this group of birds, and what motivates it to do what it does. I can’t imagine that it is striving for perfection, or that any of those individual birds are working on a technique, or that they are trying to get it better than any other little group of birds or needing to get any better than they were before. They are just doing it. They are flying. They are flying because that’s what they do.
I’m admiring patterns these days. Some patterns that are emerging are the similarities I see between bodywork (tai chi, etc.) and being with other people. The three levels of patterns that are occurring to me are 1) Slow down, 2) Let Pleasure In, and 3) Don’t Try; Just be. Today I’ll focus just on the first, but I know they are also all woven together.
Slowing down when spending time with other people improves the quality of the connection. It improves the likelihood that what is being shared is a person’s deepest truth and not some unexamined word pattern that emerges from habit or old wounds; discharge of (and/or distraction from) unfelt emotions, or defenses against really being known. Our culture does not currently support being slow with one another, but I say this is where so much richness, beauty and potential lies. What would it take to create an environment in which taking two deep breaths before responding would be natural? And a listener would not rush in to fill the silence. An environment like this would offer an unspoken, “There is no need to rush. Take your time. Take all the time you need to express yourself fully.” How amazing and how terrifying would that kind of environment be?
I desire to mend old ways of relating with others: hiding, controlling, defending. It is my intention to get better at staying connected with myself and my felt sense as I share myself with others, so that I can benefit more from the connection that human sharing can offer. Talking before connecting with myself, I have found, can result in saying things that might be “true” but are unkind, or “true” only at a superficial (usually injured, egoic) level. What I communicate when I am fully grounded and embodied is an expression of what I value, it invites a response from you that is an authentic expression of you, and the sharing creates something of value that simply nothing else can.
With the body, in activities such as yoga or tai chi, we are gently coaxed into asanas or forms that are different from what we would habitually assume. Such activities give us opportunities to slow down – to explore and know ourselves better, to listen to our deeper truth, and to improve the quality of our lives. Slowing our movements down allows us to bring awareness to unconscious ways we have used our bodies to avoid discomfort or pain it might have just been more “pleasant” to ignore. When we rush from Point A to Point B we are likely to take the path we have habitually taken, whether it’s the most elegant, most expressive, most effortless, or most ergonomically sensible path. When we take this path (from A to B) unconsciously, despite the extra effort this route may cost us (both in terms of its inefficiency and the energy required to keep information outside of awareness), we inevitably communicate our unconscious pain in the world – at the very least to the unconscious selves of others, who have brains designed to pick up such information. Such subtleties match up with other information patterns they have stored in their memory banks, beneath conscious awareness and are likely to later trigger unconscious responses and unexplained emotions in your relating with one another.
In slowing down, we may feel something we’ve been avoiding. And we might not like that, actually. But in slowing way down, we may make connections, and gain understandings about ourselves we never had before. In slowing down, we bring consciousness to those painful places we’ve been avoiding, to find out what is actually there. And in bringing consciousness there, we can understand that the pain is nothing more than sensation. You thought that was pain. But approaching that sensation with curiosity instead of judgment, with gentle exploration and generosity in terms of time and pacing, this “pain” might actually offer you information that heals and pleasure that you hadn’t afforded yourself before (which besides feeling good, brings resilience, vitality and gentle supportive presence to the body). It’s not the scary thing we’ve been spending so much energy protecting ourselves from and avoiding.
When the person I’m with is accelerated, I feel compelled to share what I have to say quickly. I am somewhat skilled at meeting other people where they are vibrationally, and have built my identity around matching and attuning, and blending in. Unknowingly, I have postponed developing the ability to claim my own vibrational frequency and maintain it in the presence of another. As a result I have often settled for the superficial (shiny, exciting) interaction that happens between two people, when what I am yearning for is so much more. The pleasure of a particular kind of connecting that I yearn for is one in which I am unguarded, grounded, and connected with exactly who I am. Grounded, in this moment, is nothing more than being attuned to my senses in this moment, being willing to slow down and take those two breaths before responding, and speaking only those words that I need to speak to express my experience in the moment.
It’s not possible to be truly compassionate with ourselves or others when we are running on adrenaline and cortosol, on guard, defended and triggered. That is why I recommend learning how to slow down, calm the body, connect with yourself and then communicate with those around you from a grounded, mindful place. It takes more than a sound bite to express oneself. And it takes more than sitting in front of the television to relax after a stressful day at work. Changing gears after living a high-vibration lifestyle for years and years is something that has to be done on purpose; it doesn’t just happen on its own. That is what I have put my mind to doing, and let me tell you, I will never turn back.
The birds this morning, in their flying and being who they are reminded me that we all know who we are, though we might have temporarily forgotten. We have worked so hard to cover up what makes us uniquely us, to mask it, or to make it different so that it is acceptable to someone else. The birds’ message to me this morning was: Don’t try; just be. Right now, do what is necessary to reconnect with the God-given greatness of all that you are. Be right here in this moment, now, and play as if right now were all that there was. You have a way to express yourself, and you have your own, inherent vibrational frequency. Re-member that it is right to want to do what you do effortlessly, naturally, and with great playfulness and joy. And then give yourself permission to go out and do it.
“To assume the best about people is almost an inherently selfish act, ’cause the life you change first is your own.”
– Brené Brown
But it can also change the lives of the people around you. You can’t know, without a doubt, if someone (who has been getting on your nerves) is doing their best. But if you can make the assumption that they are doing their best, then you actually feel more acceptance, less judgment, less resentment, and more accepting of your own imperfect, “needy” self, and maybe even recognize that you deserve support, whether any one particular person can give it to you or not.
“Generosity,” says Brené, “can’t exist without boundaries. Empathy without boundaries is not empathy. Boundaries are friggin’ important. It’s here’s what’s okay with me, and here is what’s not.”
Achieving this level of self knowledge often requires a lot of work. But it’s so worth it. Here is a video where Brené is being interviewed about compassion and boundaries. I just love it. Take a look!
Here is her question: What boundaries need to be in place for me to maintain my integrity and make my most generous assumptions about you?
That’s BIG:
