Therapy Today Isn't Your Parent's Therapy

Trauma treatment has changed over the years. Psychoanalysis was everything - talk therapy was everything. Since the 90's we are incorporating neuroscience and mind/body work to calm the nervous system.

Trauma can be anything that shakes up your world and unsettles your nervous system - and there are different degrees of it. Your nervous system sends information to the brain and back to the rest of the body. It can impact your digestion, muscle tension, memory, etc.

All of our reactions are normal and wonderfully wired to keep us alive. It’s only when we get stuck in those states of survival - for example hyper alertness or numbness - that we need help.

Working with a therapist, you will explore your stories and experiences. And you will also practice tuning into the body. How does your body feel right now? What emotion(s) are you feeling? You can use the emotion wheel (below) as a resource to find a close enough word. Where in your body are you feeling it?

Connecting to your body, noticing and naming your experience can help to calm your nervous system after it has a reaction to something that happened - good or bad.

Practicing 1-3 techniques that calm the body a bit can then help to take you from a reactionary freaked out state (“what is going on?!!!”) to a mindful state (“I’m noticing” “I am in this moment”). That mindful (being present in this moment as it is) state can then provide information on how to proceed.

There are hundreds of techniques to help calm the body. You practice the ones that work for you. Your therapist is there to help with all of that.

When you increase your window of tolerance - you can tolerate a range of emotions - you are more in control.

With (1) awareness, (2) non-judgment over your experience and (3) somatic practical techniques to center again - now you can get (4) strategic. What’s the next best move that is in line with your current values?

Your nervous system might still be trying to keep you safe and alive so don’t get mad at the process. When we don’t heal our traumas, the activated or numb state can even last years. Taking time to calm the nervous system allows healing to happen.

We move from trying to survive and coping in the short term to investing in long term tools that help heal throughout all of life’s pain and suffering.

Psychedelic treatments are now coming back into research and we are seeing some interesting developments in the trauma world. Stay tuned….

Emotion Wheel

Racial Trauma

I am a white woman by American standards so please take what I say with a grain of salt. I can never speak to the racial injustice that others have experienced in this country from first hand experience.

But I hope to speak to the trauma cycle.

If anyone thinks that African Americans are not terrorized in this country, they are miseducated but have the opportunity to self regulate and listen. When someone says they are experiencing trauma, listen. It is not about you. You do not need to defend yourself. It is about them and what they experienced. What happened to them has been done but they need to heal and we all need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Whether we are talking about bullying, rape, assault or murder - they are all forms of violence that are the entire community’s responsibility to address.

Listen for what they are actually saying rather than how they are saying it or how they are acting. Listen for the “I’m scared” “I feel powerless and hopeless” “I don’t know how to go on from here” “Am I alone in this fight for my life?”

And if you need to test in your mind the oppressive position of the African American in this country, there is one simple question: Would you want to be Black in America? Would you be willing to change the color of your skin for the rest of your life in this country?

Sometimes it’s being murdered. Sometimes it’s being tortured. Sometimes it’s being objectified. Sometimes it’s being sexualized. Sometimes it’s not getting the job, a fair wage or the promotion. Sometimes is not getting the housing. Sometimes it not getting the cab ride. Sometimes it’s not being allowed to date another race. Sometimes it’s needing a White American to vouch for you before you can do anything. The list goes on. Daily. For decades.

Of course keep your body safe but don’t suppress their anger. It is a healthy expression of oppression. That is what is normal. I wonder: Why do you not feel rage too? What is about anger that scares you? Maybe it’s time to face that.

The anger will bring change. It can be turned outward (in protests and lobbying) and it can be turned inward (in layers of self hate and shame). But let it be expressed in any way it comes out while you keep your own body safe.

After the victim is heard and is allowed to fully feel all the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), then they can heal and we can heal as a community.

Our work is never done until everyone is physically safe in this world. Everyone.

Leave the emotional safety for the next stage of healing but first provide physical safety.

You cannot heal from trauma when you continue to be attacked. If you cannot feel peace then you cannot mend. If you cannot heal then the generational narrative of danger and the goal of mere survival continues.

There is more to humanity than surviving. There is thriving. We can do it. We must first guarantee physical safety for all.

Right now we are facing yet another opportunity to turn this country’s direction toward safety. Stay angry enough to make a change. Stay strategic enough to make a real ever lasting change. There are many groups that experience oppression but the Black community in America has a unique place in our ongoing narrative.

You and I both know there are many many people who have been afraid in their own homes, in their own communities and in this world. Every time we work together to organize communities, learn from each other and gain the skills of self awareness and self regulation, we in turn help ourselves.

You might not understand the fear of being an African American man or woman in America but I bet you know what it feels like to feel scared, hopeless and powerless in some capacity. It is the human experience. Use how that feels in your body to understand another. Think of what support you could have used when you experienced that as a child or as an adult, and now give that to others.

On The Other Side Of Stress

We can appear on the surface to ourselves and others that we are "healed" and "over it". Yet, the subconscious reminds us of the work we still need to do. Even after all the work to increase our self awareness and coping skills, those triggers are powerful! And it can feel like we are back to step 1.

It weighs heavy on us. It can send us into weeks of irritability, loss of patience, loss of motivation or much apathy about everything. Life just feels like it requires so much more energy than you remember it needing. 

But you push on.

Sometimes it's not until a particular moment has passed - such as a trauma anniversary or an emotionally challenging event - that we realize the heavy stress we were under. 

When the trigger has passed and the stress is lifted...and we can breath easy again. When we feel light again....when we have clarity again...when we are no longer walking through emotional quicksand. When we can smile that smile that comes from within.

Peace.

Peace is the gold that we treasure on a whole other level only after we get reminders of how we lost it in the past. Honor those reminders. Realize your personal growth (and growth within relationship to others) is still a journey and that you are still in motion. To be in motion is to be alive.

Savor that window of light...the light weight on your being...the light that shines on all you still want...the light that shines on the hope you somehow always hold on to. Savor those moments. Then contain that peace within your soul and carry it with you as you continue your journey.

You are here. You are not where you were. You can get triggered. You can feel like you are shot back in time to that unhealthy expression of you that you detest. But savor the realization that you are not back there. You are here. And you are in motion. Keep growing. Keep loving yourself for all the moments.

I am proud of you.