Tuning in

There are many different ways we can tune in to, and heal, what hurts. More and more research shows the benefits of art, theatre, exercise, dance, sound healing and so on in the healing of trauma. But indigenous cultures have known this for thousands of years, we so-called “civilised” people seem to have forgotten or lost trust in these ways.

We also know there are huge benefits to activating the vagus nerve for better physical and mental health. Using your own voice is a great way to improve the health* of the vagus nerve.

This song by Nirinjan Kaur uses chanting which, as Dr Bruce Perry points out, is rhythmic, patterned and repetitive. Sound healing (and other somatosensory methods) can touch parts of us that are hard to reach with talk therapy alone. The song is a kirtan kriya meditation, part of the kundalini yoga tradition, which holistic psychiatrist Kelly Brogan is an advocate of, she recommends this exercise for depression.

Here are the instructions for the kirtan kriya. I find following along with Nirinjan Kaur's version really powerful and moving.

* 4. Singing And Chanting – Humming, mantra chanting, hymn singing, and upbeat energetic singing all increase heart rate variability (HRV) in slightly different ways. Essentially, singing is like initiating a vagal pump sending out relaxing waves. Singing at the top of your lungs works the muscles in the back of the throat to activate the vagus. Singing in unison, which is often done in churches and synagogues, also increases HRV and vagus function. Singing has been found to increase oxytocin, also known as the love hormone because it makes people feel closer to one another". (Excerpt from article above).

Unfinished business

There is nothing inherently wrong with the flight, fight and freeze response. They are absolutely necessary and have ensured our survival and evolution as a species.

Problems arise when we can’t complete these responses in the face of threat and danger and they get stuck. The reasons why they become stuck are many.

Fleeing and fighting aren’t viable options for babies and neither for older children in many cases, especially if the threat/danger is coming from their caregivers. So their only option is to freeze (Most people use the term freeze to refer to immobilisation, but the official term is tonic immobility. This is important to note just in case of confusion because in many studies you will see up to six threat responses and the term freeze will begin the sequence, but it does not mean immobilisation as this usually comes later if the preceding responses of flight and fight cannot be completed). Read more here.

There is another possible response between fight and immobilisation and that is fawn, befriend and appease. Children often learn that appeasing is their best defence against adults who are neglectful and abusive, although it does not work with every adult and in every situation.

Shame is another big reason why these responses can get stuck. In abusive and neglectful situations children are shamed for having needs, not being perfect, and sometimes just for existing and a very common response will be to collapse in order to make themselves smaller which acts as some form of protection. We can also feel shame for not having done enough. These early adverse experiences are the root of developmental trauma which can predispose us to more trauma later in life.

We have the ability to shut down both physically and psychologically in order to minimise any emotional and physical pain. We cannot separate the mind from the body, though we continue to do so because of very strong conditioning. Dissociation therefore is both psychic and somatic.

We can see just how valuable it is to be able to immobilise in the face of threat. However, if this sense of threat is internalised or we continue to shut down when there is no clear and present danger, problems can result. We become frightened of our own responses, emotions and body sensations and what we fear, we can’t process. This unresolved traumatic stress results in our system becoming inflamed, and we all know that chronic inflammation is the root cause of chronic disease.

What makes you need/want to flee?
What makes you need/want to fight?
What makes you need/want to appease?
What makes you need/want to shutdown?

It is really helpful, when you can, to determine where you are in terms of these responses. You can then use that state and your answers to the above questions in your tapping, for example:

Even though I want to flee and that makes me feel … I accept how I feel 

Even though I’m stuck in fight, I feel the need to fight when … I completely accept my response at this time

Even though I freeze (immobilise) when faced with … I accept that’s the way I’ve adapted to feeling/being threatened

Even though I don’t like the way I respond to threat, I am open to finding ways that work for me so I can find resolution and peace

Repeat whatever words/phrases feel right on the points.

Is your body saying No?

If we're not honest about how we truly feel, our bodies will do our speaking for us. If we can't or won't say No, our body will say No. It will develop symptoms that will force us to say No.

When we muscle test, our muscles go weak when we don't tell the truth or lie. It's a diagnostic tool. Lying is exhausting, it weakens us and our physical and mental health. Start giving yourself permission to tell the truth, if only to yourself, by doing so, you’ll be taking the pressure off your body to speak your truth for you.

People often ask why do we affirm the "negative" in EFT, how we feel is not negative, it's the truth and the truth will set you free.

Watch this excellent video by Dr Gabor Maté, 21mins 26secs long.

Why does anxiety feel so bad?

I don’t think anxiety is an emotion, it is a state. A state which comes about when we haven’t been able to feel emotional pain, so it builds up, and we then become afraid of connecting with that mountain of pain and its sensations in the body.  As Deepak Chopra says in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, hurt is the most basic negative [or uncomfortable] emotion we can feel. States like anxiety and depression are secondary formations once we learned not to feel or express our hurt in the moment.

It’s not as simple as that though. Not feeling pain, in the case of dissociation, is an automatic response from our autonomic nervous system. We do not have any control over it. Our system senses if an experience could be overwhelming and dissociation kicks in to protect us from the pain, as much as it can. Think about the times you’ve gone numb when something awful or overwhelming has happened. You didn’t make the choice to dissociate, it happened automatically.

We can also consciously avoid pain, this is sometimes called avoidance, emotional numbing and experiential avoidance. But what counts at the end of the day is the unfelt pain and how we go about feeling it safely and gently.

Anxiety is about the fear of going inside; where our pain is. Maybe that’s why anxiety can be difficult to work with, because to heal anxiety we need to learn a new way of being with all of our emotions, especially the uncomfortable ones, including, but not limited to, fear.

One of the most powerful techniques for feeling our pain is an exercise called pendulation from Peter Levine. It really works because instead of dissociating and avoiding, we learn to feel into the pain little by little (what Levine calls titration). Pendulation also gives us the experience that not all of our body feels horrible, there are also some parts that feel neutral, calm and good, whether it’s our elbow or little toe. Pendulating between a painful part and a calm part also gives us the experience of holding opposites which helps enlarge our container, or window of tolerance, for difficult emotions.

Try tapping on the sentences below, see what comes up and tap through the points with your answers.

Even though I’m afraid of going inside, I completely accept how I feel

Even though it all feels too big and overwhelming, I don’t know where to start, I can start where it feels safest to go

Even though this anxiety feels … I accept all of my feelings around this

Even though I want to rush things so I feel better, I know I’ve become overwhelmed in the past doing this, so I choose to take it slowly and gently

Tapping classes

I will be holding two tapping classes on Thursday, 21st February at 11am GMT and 5pm GMT, so depending on which part of the world you live in, you can hopefully join me. The class costs €15 for 90 minutes and the size will be kept small.

The format I’m experimenting with at the moment is having someone volunteer for the theme I’ve chosen for that month, I would also love any suggestions if you would like to send them to me. I’ve chosen being heard and seen for this month as it is a huge issue for many of us. For the volunteer it is like having a session with me and others can borrow benefits. Tapping in a group can be powerful, your system will draw parallels with the other person's issue, even if the issue you want to work on is different.

If you'd like to join either class you can send your payment here and I'll send you an invitation to the class (specify what time you'd like). I'll be using Zoom which you can download for free here.

You have the option of being anonymous during the class, when you enter the meeting you can use your own name, a pseudo name or you don't have to use any name, you can also turn your video and audio on or off. If you have any questions about the classes or any subjects you'd like to tap on, you can email me: info[at]energyandintention[dot]com.

Our internal family

I was reading a blog post by Carolyn Spring, who has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), the other day called ‘Learning to Control Switching’. She writes of her therapist: She bends in towards me, seeking me out, because I’m closing down connection with her by huddling into my body and staring at my feet. ‘Your parts don’t feel accepted by you,’ she says, gently. ‘They don’t feel that you’re on their side. You don’t collaborate with them most of the time. You ‘curtail’ them. So they hijack you.’

We all have parts, or sub personalities, every single one of us. There would be no such thing as internal conflict if we didn’t have parts, because our one self would always be in agreement or disagreement about whatever it is. There wouldn’t be one part wanting to give up smoking and another part anxious about how we’d cope, for example.

Richard Schwartz, who developed Internal Family Systems (IFS), believes that multiplicity of the mind is the norm as do many other clinicians and researchers. With DID, the parts are more fragmented because of the trauma they hold, and that's very disconcerting and upsetting for the sufferer because it can lead to things like dissociative amnesia.

When we get to know our parts and connect with them using a framework like IFS, we can resolve a lot of internal conflicts which has a ripple like effect in our lives. Like Carolyn, our parts hijack us when we’re not listening to them. In a way they have no choice, they need to get our attention. In IFS, this is called blending and our parts can take us over when we’re triggered. But the more we realise what’s happening, and the more integrated our parts become, the more we can stay in what Schwartz calls, the Self. There are eight qualities of the Self according to Schwartz: calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, creativity, courage, and connectedness.

We can all dissociate when we find an experience overwhelming. The only difference is to what degree we dissociate. Dissociation is a fantastic skill we all possess to cope with really painful experiences that just can't be fully felt at a certain moment in time. There is nothing pathological about dissociating. As Irish psychiatrist, Ivor Browne says: Instead of a way of avoiding external danger, it [dissociation] is now utilised to deal with the threat of internal destabilisation; whenever we are faced with an overwhelming experience that we sense as potentially disintegrating, we have the ability to suspend it and "freeze'' it in an unassimilated, inchoate form and maintain it in that state indefinitely, or for as long as necessary.

Normalising phenomena like dissociation and trauma is important, because to a greater or lesser degree, we've all experienced them. It's the human condition. The stigma, fear and misinformation around mental “disorders” is alive and kicking and education can help dispel a lot of the myths.

Keep it simple

I really need to keep things simple, when I don’t, I can get overwhelmed. One way we can show our self great kindness and respect is to stop doing things that overwhelm us. Whenever you can, take a break when you recognise your own unique signs of overwhelm coming on. The more you do this, the better you become at releasing stress (old and new) and then it doesn’t build up.

I love it when others keep things simple too. I see it as a sign of security in their experience, knowledge and self when they don’t feel the need to dazzle with lots of facts (which are always evolving anyway, the more we learn and know) or big words. As someone I know said, there are no experts, just people with expertise. People with expertise know they’re always learning and give themselves a break for not being perfect.

The Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens, Tramore, Waterford, Ireland.

Keeping it as simple as we possibly can is particularly important when it comes to learning about trauma which can very easily feel overwhelming and like we’ll never heal because there’s too much to do. But, as Martin Luther King said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. We need to watch out for any signs of perfection or any sense of brokenness because we’re ‘not fixed yet’. These are the exact times when we need to muster up as much kindness as we can for our self, it can make all the difference in the world.

Four definitions of trauma

How do we define trauma? Is it how you experience an event or the event itself? I think it’s how we experience the event. Traumatic events do not necessarily lead to trauma. For trauma to occur we have to persistently dissociate from something we find too painful to feel.

1. Unexperienced experience ~ Ivor Browne
2. Dysregulated and disorganised qi (life energy) ~ Alaine Duncan
3. Disconnection from the self and the present moment ~ Gabor Maté
4. PTSD Criterion A: stressor (one required). The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in the following way(s): Direct exposure; Witnessing the trauma; Learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a trauma; Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics) ~ Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

Even though a PTSD diagnosis has become synonymous with trauma, trauma manifests itself in many different ways, it will be unique to you and your life experiences. You do not have to have experienced an event from Criterion A to be traumatised. Trauma can be insidious, repeated experiences that accumulate in your nervous systems over years, causing what is called a dysregulated nervous system. This is why I never use the terms big T or little t trauma. Trauma is trauma. Symptoms of unresolved trauma include: anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, autoimmune issues, chronic unexplained medical symptoms, heart disease, addiction, bipolar disorder, insomnia and so on.