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Somatic Experiencing

“Trauma is a fact of life.  It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”

Dr. Peter Levine 

 

What is Somatic Experiencing? 

Most of us can easily identify with the feeling we have when we are faced with a threat of any kind.  The other day I was driving down the highway following an ice storm.  It was a sunny day and the roads had cleared, however, many vehicles were still carrying around sheets of ice as they traveled at a high speed.  Twice as I was driving, huge pieces of ice flew off of another vehicle and hit mine.  Each time I startled and noticed my breath change and my heart rate increase.  I was gripping the steering wheel tightly.  This was my body’s response to the threat.  It was preparing me to respond.  Thankfully, I was safe and only needed to settle my system.  I took a few deep breaths, widened my field of vision, and paid attention to my legs as I grounded myself.  This type of situation happens all day at varying levels in our body’s nervous system.  We have activation and then deactivation and settling.  The choreography of the central nervous system.  When it is in a state of flow, it moves along naturally without incident, doing what it is designed to do.

Trauma can be defined as an experience that was too much, too soon, or too fast for us to process.  It overwhelms our coping mechanisms.  It is something that we are not able to process or digest at the time.  The result is that all of this energy that we can’t process at the time is stored in the body.  The experience of too much or too soon can be more of a shock type of trauma such as an accident, a fall,  or a single incident of violence.  It can also be experiences that are more ongoing such as childhood trauma, domestic violence, cultural or generational trauma.  When this survival energy is stuck in our bodies it can result in the onset of many debilitating symptoms such as: 

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Sleep issues
  • Nightmares
  • Somatic complaints and syndromes
  • Hyper-vigilance
  • Relational problems
  • Mood disturbance
  • Disassociation
  • Memory difficulties
  • Loss of interest 
  • Emotional regulation difficulties

Somatic Experiencing is a treatment approach created by Peter Levine, PhD., designed to help facilitate the processing and healing from trauma.  This method is a body-oriented approach working to release the unprocessed energy held in our bodies while restoring connection to self and to others.  

SE works from a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in fight, flight, or freeze responses and provides the tools to resolve these fixed states.  This approach facilitates the completion of this survival energy which is bound in the body and the nervous system, addressing the root of many traumatic symptoms.  It is a gentle approach designed to help someone build their capacity and resilience over time while learning concepts of containment and resilience.  This can be deeply encouraging to those suffering from traumatic symptoms as these feelings, sensations, and thoughts can be overwhelming to the survivor.  Rather than focusing exclusively on the thoughts and/or emotions related to the traumatic event, Somatic Experiencing utilizes the body or somatic responses and also their innate capacity for healing.  

As a client works with a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), they learn to navigate the symptoms of traumatic stress and build awareness, coherence, and self-regulation.  Together they are able to help release the unresolved trauma response and work to manage stress and navigate life transitions.  A person finds they are able to re-engage in life.  Renegotiating trauma is the process of restoring life and a connection to life.  

Several therapists at Little Rock Counseling and Wellness are committed to helping individuals, marriages, and families recover from the impact of trauma.  There are many wonderful treatment approaches which have been designed to work with those suffering from the symptoms of trauma.  Many are trained in several specific approaches to the treatment of trauma including Somatic Experiencing.

If you find you feel “stuck” in your trauma or the symptoms of trauma we can help.  Please contact us to find a clinician who can help you navigate as you work to heal.  You can also visit the Counselor’s page on our website to learn more about our clinicians who are trained in Somatic Experiencing.

Our Therapists

For further information of Somatic Experiencing here are resources:

  1. Traumahealing.org
  2. “Waking the Tiger” by Peter Levine, PhD
  3. “In an Unspoken Voice” by Peter Levine, PhD
  4. “Healing Trauma” by Peter Levine, PhD
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Rest Deepens Resilience

July is National Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Mental Health Month and it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about racialized trauma, how it might show up, and using rest to help navigate the current and generational trauma of racism and systemic oppression. As I begin this post, I would like to acknowledge the fact that we exist on Native ground. Our life experiences and cultural norms and habits are interconnectedly woven with the atrocities faced by the native people of this land.  Countless transgressions have occurred for that to be our position today in a country that continues to embrace and empower systems and institutions that force our Native brothers and sisters to remain invisible. Feel free to join me in taking a few seconds for reverence. 

 Honoring BIPOC Mental Health this July is particularly different as most of the country and the world is grappling with the aftermath and continued struggle of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have the shared experience of collectively traversing through the challenges and difficulties of this prolonged crisis; a shared experience that provides a sense of togetherness. While also noticing this shared experience we encountered, I can’t ignore that there were unique struggles that some of us faced during the pandemic that lacks that togetherness quality. BIPOC people were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 as we, also, faced heightened racial tension. Much of what we encountered was not necessarily foreign (which in itself speaks to the breadth of racism and systemic oppression of this country), however, the intensity, frequency, and magnitude of what was happening amidst a pandemic, gave rise to increased stress and trauma within the BIPOC community. 

 If you’ve been able to keep up with the blog posts thus far, you’ve noticed many others have eloquently written about trauma—what it is and how it affects us. As others have mentioned previously, trauma is less about the event. Trauma happens when something happens too fast, too much, and too soon in a way that overwhelms our nervous system. It’s very important to take note that trauma is not a weakness. On the contrary, it is a highly adaptive and effective tool for safety. Our beautiful nervous systems are wired for survival. As I write that, there’s an invitation to smile and take in the beauty of that gift. If it feels right for you, I invite you to take a few seconds and sit with that as well. 

Trauma is stored in our bodies. Because trauma is in our bodies, many BIPOC folks are not only navigating daily racialized trauma, but also the intergenerational trauma that accompanies us as well—genocide, colonization, enslavement, land theft, and displacement. As Resmaa Menakem talks about in his book, “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies,” our traumatized bodies don’t speak the same language of the brain. Therefore, our brains cannot distinguish the difference between what has occurred in the past and what’s to come in the future. Our traumatized bodies only understand the now. Things that have happened and are happening to us show up in our bodies in the present moment. James Baldwin concisely communicates this, although I don’t believe he was intentionally referencing trauma and our bodies, his quote still holds weight here in this conversation.  

History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us.

James Baldwin

 This is exactly why it can be so exhausting, confusing, and infuriating when we bring up the effects of past, race-related, harmful events, and we’re gaslighted and/or minimized because it’s deemed as irrelevant because of perceived time discrepancies.  Our bodies know no difference.   At times this racialized trauma might show up in our bodies as anxiety, feeling stuck, rage, dissociation, indifference, and overdrive. We’ve had to and continue to have to use these mechanisms to survive a place that feels unsafe. 

 I can only speak to the specific experience of being Black and hope that other BIPOC folks can and will take up space to speak on the ways in which racialized trauma shows up for them. For brevity’s sake, let’s focus on how this shows up in Black folks as being in overdrive. Historically speaking, black folks were enslaved and forced to work. Our worth as human beings (actually considered property at the time) was synonymous with how much we worked. Slowing down, resting, choosing to not work, or pacing ourselves could have literally resulted in death. Today, those same patterns present in our bodies (overdrive) as we continue to have to navigate a system that perpetuates similarly harmful patterns (the continued tenets of racism, systemic oppression, and white supremacy). As Black folks, we’ve heard our fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, and uncles declare that we must work twice as hard as others to be on the same playing field. Oftentimes, rest seems out of reach. 

In addition, our society exalts exhaustion. Tricia Hersey gives a very sobering perspective regarding exhaustion in the U.S.

We exist in a culture that supports sleep-deprivation; we have been brainwashed by capitalism to work at a machine-level pace, and to equate our worth with how much we can produce.

Tricia Hersey

We have these mechanisms as adaptations to exist in environments that are not safe. The goal, then, is not to extinguish mechanisms that keep us safe, but to have the ability to sense into and feel moments when these protective mechanisms are not needed. 


REST

/rest/

 relax, take a rest, ease up/off, let up, slow down, pause, have/take a break, unbend, repose, idle, loaf, do nothing, take time off, slack off, unwind, recharge one’s batteries, be at leisure, take it easy, sit back, sit down, stand down, lounge, luxuriate, put one’s feet up, lie down, go to bed, have/take a nap, catnap, doze, have/take a siesta.

– The Nap Ministry @thenapministry

 

Rest is a tool for healing that deepens our resilience. Rest is not something we should try to earn by exhausting ourselves, but it is our birthright. Profoundly put by the Nap Ministry, rest is also a form of resistance.

Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy.

The Nap Ministry

 BIPOC folks, when we rest, we heal. We can reclaim our birthright. Doubt may show up here as you read this and that’s okay. I, myself, am still navigating the fears associated with taking up the space to properly take care of myself in the form of rest. You might need to lean on communal support to process that and begin actively practicing self-love through resting. It might also be beneficial to speak with a healer/therapist to work through how you can begin to tap into the wisdom your body has to offer.

 Walking in the liberation of rest is not wrapped in simple, quick fixes. It will take active engagement in an embodied way. Healing is available for you. In the same way that trauma is held in our bodies, so is healing. I’ll leave with this last quote as it offers a beautiful offering for those who have sacrificed before us.

One of your ancestors’ wildest dreams was being able to rest. Sit down today. Take a nap.

@geecheeexperience from @KeNaiyaa

 

Resource List: 

My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

The Nap Ministry– Here you’ll find the link to a blog, podcasts, articles, playlists, and other resources to support your rest journey.

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Movement, Resilience, and Our Nervous Systems

As Dr. Phillips mentioned in the last post, trauma is considered the experience of something that happens too much, something too soon, or something too fast. Considering the last year of our shared pandemic experience, it seems reasonable to consider that we might all have had something unexpected to navigate. Perhaps we were also already working to navigate other charged circumstances that had happened before. Or maybe during this bigger life event, we had a number of other unexpected life events happen that tested the limits of our coping. Whatever is true for you and your system, you are still here. The beauty of the human nervous system is that it is wired for survival. 

 

Considering that trauma does not reside in the event, but in the body, we can then consider that trauma healing becomes a journey with the body. By inviting movement into our awareness, we can invite the wisdom of the body—the nervous system—into a process of release and recovery, deepening our capacity to navigate uncertainty. The goal of nervous system regulation is to support a space of optimal responding that is congruent with the current environment, meaning that the response may not always be a state of calm. 

 

One way to consider being in a state of overwhelm is to consider that we have lost contact with our internal observer. The internal observer is the element of awareness that supports our system of engagement. By inviting this internal resource back into the conversation of our experience, we can begin to notice our body, or images of ourselves, or our external environment in a different way; perhaps even inviting space for cycles of distress activation to find a place of resolution or completion. 

 

Let’s play with this a little bit.. 

 

Starting where you are, maybe you want to be reclined, seated, or find a place to stand. As we begin to play with some movement, be curious. Notice what might be happening in your sensation experience. Consider if this experience might be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. If you find the sensation unpleasant, be curious what happens if you might change your position slightly, slow down or speed up. 

 

If you are reclined, allow your body to softly land against the support that is underneath. Begin to notice the places of contact between your body and what is supporting you. Working from the bottom up, begin to notice the soles of your feet. Notice the curling and stretching of your toes, feel the muscles of your feet. Be curious if your ankles need to move and flex. Allow your attention to travel up your lower legs, knees, and upper legs; flexing and releasing these muscle areas. Notice your hip joints and hips. Begin to notice your lower back, mid back, and upper back. Be curious if you can soften what might be tensing. Notice your abdominal area and soft organs underneath your rib cage. Experience the movement of your breathing. Notice where your breath lands in your body. Allow your attention to travel to your shoulders and chest, perhaps lifting shoulders, up, back, and down. Notice the muscles of your upper arms, elbows, and lower arms; flexing and releasing. Notice your wrists, hands, and fingers. Feel the muscles of your hands. Allow your attention to travel to your neck and jaw. Allow your jaw to move gently side to side. Release the tongue from the roof of your mouth. Soften your eyes and forehead. Allow your head to be supported, and rest. Notice what is different with your sensation, thought, feeling, or image experience. Consider if this is what you need.

 

If you are seated, begin to notice the places your body makes contact with any supports. Perhaps this is the floor or the object in which you are seated. Consider if you need to make any small or large adjustments to allow your body to feel a greater sense of ease. From here, bring awareness to your abdominal area, lift your shoulders up, back, and down. Allow your arms to fall where they may, hands can be resting in your lap, on your thighs or knees. Beginning from the lowest place, scan over your body from feet to crown, and consider what your system needs here. Perhaps this is enough. Perhaps you are noticing a desire to move. As you continue to notice your body being supported, begin to open and close your hands. Notice how your muscles feel as they move in opposite directions. Notice if any other gestures or movements have started or are wanting to happen. Consider allowing those gestures to happen. Once you have given your system what it might need, take an easy, full breath, and then rest. Notice what is different in your sensation, thought, feeling, or image experience. Perhaps this is enough; consider how you will know.   

 

If you are standing, place your feet hip width apart; hip width is the distance of two tight fists between your feet. Leaving a slight bend in your knees, begin to lengthen through your legs, chest, and spine. Bring awareness to your abdominal area, lift your shoulders up, back, and down. Allow your arms to fall to your sides and extend through the crown of your head. Keeping your feet where they are, begin to invite some sway into your knees and arms. Perhaps you continue in this way. Perhaps you bring more swaying motion with your arms, moving in a way that brings your forward hand to your opposite hip and reverse, like a washing machine. Notice if your system is okay here, or if you might want to speed up or slow down. Once you have given your system what it might need, begin to slow your motions until you have returned to a place of stillness. Allow a moment of integration to consider what information you are receiving from your body. Notice what is different in your sensation, thought, feeling, or image experience.  Consider if that can be okay. 

 

Whatever you have chosen for your system today, trust that you have given yourself what you have needed. You are both a witness and protector of your own system.

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Stuck, Overwhelmed, and Moving into Resilience

One year ago, our lives were drastically changed. What we now know as “everyday life” was said to be a two-week process in order to flatten the curve. A year later, we are still living in this very challenging situation. It has tested us in ways we could not imagine. It has tested our mental health, physical health, emotional health, financial health, relational health and our community health. If you are like me, you are exhausted. In our practice we are seeing more and more people seeking counseling and other mental health services to help them deal with this state of overwhelm.

Anniversaries can be moments of celebration but they can also be moments of painful remembrance. As we mark one year we find that we are taxed by what all the past year has brought us. If you feel burned out it is because you should. The pandemic has overwhelmed all of our capacities in different ways. You may find that you are experiencing depression and anxiety in ways you have not experienced in the past and seem stuck and unable to move out of those states. You may be struggling with issues related to food or alcohol and find that you are turning to more dysfunctional means to cope. Again, this is what so many others have been struggling with.

Feeling stuck is often a normal trauma response. Many of us have experienced various levels of “stuckness” over the past year. Trauma can be defined as too much; something that happens too soon, or happens too fast. When something is too much, we are not able to integrate the experience and respond with our normal coping mechanisms. It is more intensity than what the nervous system can handle. Too much fear, too much uncertainty, too much disconnection. It goes beyond what we have the capacity to manage and we don’t have access to enough resources or connection to help us stabilize and regulate. This is exactly what has happened for so many over the past year.

If you have felt stuck or frozen it is completely normal. We have all felt this in various degrees over the past year. We can help to mobilize these feelings and help our nervous system rebound and grow in resilience even in this situation. Take time to notice what you feel. Talk to someone. Move. Reach out for help. Find a therapist. Gentle movements are one of the best ways to try and help our system mobilize out of freeze or “stuckness”.

One constant in life is that we are faced with the unexpected time and time again. At times the unexpected is in the form of a beautiful gift you did not expect, a wonderful gesture from a friend, the chance meeting of someone who will be in your life for a long time. However, we also are deeply aware that the unexpected also brings painful visitors; being let go from a job, the loss of a loved one, a traumatic event, even a pandemic. These life crises happen to all of us. How well we do in navigating when we are faced with the unexpected often comes down to a concept known as resilience.

Resilience is often defined as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, significant sources of stress, relationship challenges, illness, tragedy, or trauma. Some have defined resilience as our ability to bounce back after these types of traumas. Resilience helps us to come out of this sense of “stuckness”. One of the most encouraging aspects of resilience is that we can actually work on it.

As we are at the year mark of the pandemic, we notice the difficulty of the past year and we also notice the ways we could be moving into change and are seeing hope. If you are noticing that you have been struggling with feeling stuck or frozen then you are like so many who are navigating this time. There are ways to help yourself move out of freeze and into more resilience. We are starting a three-part blog series focusing on just that. One of our therapists, Lisa Hunt will write about how movement can help us deepen our resilience and come into more flexibility in our nervous systems. Then we will have a post by another one of our therapists, Savanna Scott, focusing on how yoga can help children navigate these same issues. Children of course throughout the pandemic are struggling with the same issues as adults and are just as overwhelmed.

Let’s focus on what can help. We have several therapists on staff who specialize in helping navigate trauma and trauma reactions, helping to grow resilience and come out of overwhelm or shut down. Please let us know if we can be of assistance.

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Capacity

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

– Jellaludin Rumi

It is very difficult to think about welcoming all guests when some of them are deeply painful, confusing, life altering, and challenging. We have been in a state now for several months where we have guests in our home that we never dreamed of, the unexpected and the uninvited. We have a pandemic, fear, confusion, and transition. We have violence, fear, protesting, inequality, rage, courage, and the hope of change. All of these are visiting at the same time. If you are like me you are not sure that your house has enough rooms to manage all of these unexpected guests. Could it even be possible that all of this is coming to guide us to something greater, some joy, some change?

A few years ago, I started a new trauma training called Somatic Experiencing. In that training I heard a new word related to our ability to manage states of distress, emotions and physical sensations. The word is capacity. I had never thought of that word before as it relates to me personally. I had heard capacity used related to how much your refrigerator could hold for example or how many people an auditorium could handle at one time but never how much I could manage effectively within myself at a certain time. Now that I know the word in that way I find myself using it all of the time. It actually makes so much sense. My whole system; body, soul, mind, and heart are a container much like a refrigerator or an auditorium. I too have boundaries of space and limitations. Recently my husband cleaned out the refrigerator. This is a dreaded task in our household. You never know what you are going to find. Yet it is completely necessary because each time we returned from the grocery store we had more and more trouble fitting in the new because we just had not cleaned out the old. We were pushing the capacity of our fridge, and who really needs 5 jars of pickles. Literally, 5 jars. Apparently, we just kept buying pickles because one jar would get lost in the back behind the milk and the juice and another on a separate shelf behind the eggs and the containers of left overs from 3 weeks ago. At times you have to clean out the junk to make room for the new. We are not too different from this.

Capacity simply means, “the maximum amount that something can contain.” I am sure that if you are like me you know what it feels like internally when you are beyond your capacity. You have maxed out on what you can contain in a healthy way. The tricky part is, we all have different capacities. Right now, many of us are stretched in ways we never imagined. Our capacities are at their brink. Some of us have spilled over, our capacity overwhelmed and now feel that it is all just too much. This is not something to be ashamed of, it is very normal. At times, things are just too much, beyond our capacity. In these times, we need more help. We need more simplicity and more self-care. We need to slow down and attend to our boundaries, emotions, relationships, and our bodies. As we attend to these they speak to us and let us know how we can care for ourselves in the moment.

By talking about refrigerators and auditoriums I absolutely do not want to trivialize or minimize the enormous stress on our capacity as individuals, families, communities, and countries at this time. We have exploded outside our ability to manage and are currently in a state of complete chaos and stress. It is one thing when our refrigerator exceeds its capacity and another thing all together when it is the world in which we live on a daily basis. It is terrifying and can feel totally out of control.

In her book, “Rising Strong” Dr. Brene Brown discusses resilience and stories from people who have shared their experiences in times of extreme stress, their stories of being brave and stories of falling and learning to get back up states that a commonality among these people is that “They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid to lean in to discomfort.” She later states, “The process of regaining our emotional footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness in our lives; it’s the process that teaches us the most about who we are.” This is a challenging process but it is necessary. We are in the midst of an extremely challenging time and it is testing all of us. How will we Rise Strong? We start today with a simple invitation.

Invite the guests. Listen. Learn. Allow the sorrow and allow the joy. These are all guests. They all have lessons to teach us. As we learn we heal. We grow and we expand. When the guests of this time leave we have expanded capacity if we choose. This capacity allows for more. Right now. Right here. It matters. We invite these guests. The ignored. The rage. The sorrow. The pain. The Beauty. The Strength. These are all guests who need to come and stay awhile in our guest house. We need to learn. We need to imagine. We tear away what was old so that something new can arrive. At times this comes in violent ways. Is it terrifying? Yes, at times. Change does not come easily for most of us. It can be painful. Yet, it is necessary. When we can learn to accept all of the guests we expand our capacity and our resilience. Reach out and get help if you need it. We all share in this process of humanity. You are not alone.

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Coping in Crisis

As I was writing about my reflections from the therapy room in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found that another article was already brewing in my mind about more practical suggestions and tangible resources that could be helpful. So here it is.

…there was always a way to get through a difficulty. If you just keep swimming, you’ll find your way. And when your brain wants to give up because there’s no land in sight, you keep swimming, not because you’re certain swimming will take you where you want to go, but to prove to yourself that you can still swim.

― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

I’ve found myself coming back to one of my very favorite book recommendations several times over the past couple of weeks- Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. I’ve used a few of their quotes throughout that seem to apply especially well to what I’d like to share here. If you currently have the capacity to do so, I would highly recommend listening to this on audiobook, as the authors do an excellent job of narrating it.

The good news is that stress is not the problem. The problem is that the strategies that deal with stressors have almost no relationship to the strategies that deal with the physiological reactions our bodies have to those stressors. To be “well” is not to live in a state of perpetual safety and calm, but to move fluidly from a state of adversity, risk, adventure, or excitement, back to safety and calm, and out again. Stress is not bad for you; being stuck is bad for you.

― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

When I first outlined my thoughts for this article, I had separated it into two or three different practical ideas that could help us all cope more effectively with this crisis. Then, I realized, there was really only one point I was trying to make: we need to move. 

No, I don’t only mean exercise, per se (though, that isn’t a bad idea). Perhaps even more aptly, we need to mobilize. Since my passion, and much of my nerdom, is related to the healing of trauma and the effects of adversity, some of this idea comes from what I’ve learned working as a trauma therapist. Without digging too deep into theory here, I will do my best to summarize, and perhaps oversimplify for the sake of brevity, what we know about the nervous system and traumatic stress as it applies to what we’re going through right now.

Some brilliant leaders in the trauma therapy world, like Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Stephen Porges, and Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, have helped us realize that when we experience stress and trauma, we must look to the body to both understand what’s happening and know how to intervene most effectively. We know that the body’s number one goal is to survive at all costs. So what happens when our biology detects that there is a threat in our environment, whether seen, like a bear, or unseen, like a novel virus? Immediately, it prepares us to run or fight, whichever seems most likely to help us survive. What many of us don’t realize is that this energy must be “spent.” This mobilizing energy doesn’t seep out of our pores or simply dissolve with time. When we’re unable to mobilize, as our bodies prepared us to, or instead go into a freeze or shutdown mode, this leftover energy can wreak havoc on our minds and bodies. This can result in a myriad of symptoms like anxiety, depression/shutdown, illness/poor immune function, irritability, brain fog, PTSD, etc. What’s especially tricky about unseen threats, like the one we’re experiencing now, is that we’re less able to react organically to allow this energy to move through, as we would automatically run from a bear or instinctually slam on our brakes to avoid a car accident. This means we simply have to be more intentional and mindful of what to do to help this energy move its way out of our system.

So my main encouragement over the past couple of weeks has been to find a way to mobilize. Find a way to mobilize the energy that our bodies naturally produce in response to any kind of threat. This includes moving our bodies, most importantly, but also finding, as I mentioned in my previous post, what we can control and what we can do and doing that. Below, I’ve included a list of free resources that I’ve gathered that may help you, as Emily and Amelia say in Burnout, to “do a thing” to help move your stress through and perhaps even be stronger and more resilient on the other side of it.

The moral of the story is: We thrive when we have a positive goal to move toward, not just a negative state we’re trying to move away from.

― Emily Nagoski, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Free Resource List:

Yoga With Adriene– Free via YouTube

Online classes with local yoga studio, Blue Yoga Nyla

Breathing for wellness with Audrea Morado (our new massage therapist!)

Self-Compassion Meditation Sessions

Dr. Brené Brown’s new podcast 

*The first episode addresses the pandemic specifically

Webinar from Robyn Gobbel: “Nurturing Your Children (and self) During the Crisis of COVID-19: Tips and Tricks from a Stay-At-Home Mama That Used To Be a Play Therapist That Used To Be a Preschool Teacher”

Webinar, also from Robyn Gobbel, about a deeper dive into some of the concepts I’ve presented here, including application to parenting.

*Free with code “safe” at checkout. I’d also recommend looking through all of Robyn Gobbel’s other on-demand webinars. She’s got a lot of great parenting resources!

Resources for cultivating mindfulness & restoring calm from Sounds True

Video series about the power of self-compassion

List of homeschool businesses that are offering free subscriptions during the COVID-19 school closures

If you are able and would like to support relief efforts for our community, you can do so through the Little Rock Cares COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund which benefits food relief efforts provided by World Central Kitchen and the purchasing of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other COVID-19 related expenses.

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Resilience in Crisis

If you were a fly on the wall of my therapy office over the last week or so, you would have heard a lot of talk about the COVID-19 pandemic. What I started noticing quickly was that there are a lot of similarities in how people are experiencing the crisis and what we’re all saying about it. “I’ve never experienced anything like this” and “This is so bizarre” have been heavy hitters as well as plenty of jokes about lifetime supplies of toilet paper. I often reflect on my job and see the privilege that it is to be able to sometimes be on the front lines of people’s vulnerability and more unfiltered observations and experiences. With that being said, a few common themes have been on my mind that I thought might be worth sharing.

In a very real way, each moment of our lives is potentially therapeutic as we seek to deepen our presence with each other.

Dr. Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma

As mentioned above, we haven’t experienced anything quite like this before and most of us, it seems, are acutely aware of this in similar ways. Anything that rocks our world on this sort of level- on some conscious or unconscious wavelength- brings up some existential awareness, thoughts, or questions. It can cause us to think deeply about our day-to-day lives, our values, and our priorities like nothing else can. While many of us are being slowed down by the changes in our routines, we might all benefit from taking the time to temporarily shift our focus and ask what this experience can teach or show us that we might not have considered otherwise.

…Crisis means to sift. Let it all fall away and you’ll be left with what matters. What matters most cannot be taken away. Just do the next right thing one thing at a time. That’ll take you all the way home.

Glennon Doyle, Love Warrior

A useful construct in the somatic therapy world centers around the idea of paying attention to what is going right. If you talk to many somatically-informed trauma therapists, you’re bound to hear one of them describe the idea that, among all of the unknowns in working deeply with trauma, we always know more is going right in a body than is going wrong. I often find that the living, breathing human in front of me in trauma therapy has no idea how beautiful and incredible their resilience is.

In times of crisis and especially in one as big as we’re experiencing now, it’s easy to begin to feel like everything is off-kilter, nothing is normal. What my trauma training has taught me, though, is that systemically this simply can’t be the case. Even though I’m not in my usual office and am instead meeting with counseling clients online, it’s still just me and my client and therapy and support looks largely similar. Even though we’re more geographically separated from people than we normally would be, they’re still our people. They still care about us and we still care about them. I think it’s important right now to find the normalcy among all the non-normalcy and the resiliency we hold there. It’s there; we just may have to go looking for it or be intentional about fostering it in order to see it.

The essence of trauma isn’t events, but aloneness within them.

Dr. Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma

The last thought I want to include here may be the simplest and perhaps the most important: we’re all in this together. Every one of us has been impacted in some way by the pandemic. I believe that is one of the main reasons we’re experiencing it as such a unique experience. I believe we will function at our best right now if we remain mindful of this fact and act with intentionality in supporting each other. Again, Glennon Doyle’s words fit so beautifully here, “All we can do is offer relief from this fear: I am all alone. That’s the one fear you can alleviate.”

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You’re Bigger than This

I am bigger than this.

This is one of my favorite mantras. Mantras are tricky, of course, because what resonates with one person doesn’t with another. What means one thing to one person means something totally different to another person. I, personally, like this one because I certainly have a proclivity toward over-identifying with some not so useful things in life. For me, this often comes in the form of over-identification with other’s perspective on my loveability and worthiness and on what I do instead of who I am. To be clear, by over-identification I mean allowing this thing to get wrapped into who I am and/or my worthiness of love and belonging versus putting it in its rightful place (as simply someone’s opinion, for example). For others, it’s easy to over-identify with achievements/success, their emotions, or their intellect and thoughts. The reality is we’re all so much bigger than that. By bigger, I don’t mean a sense of prideful self-inflation. What I’m referencing is more like what Marianne Williamson describes in her poem “Our Deepest Fear.” I’ve posted the full poem here because I believe the whole poem is worth a read and perhaps a couple re-reads:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small

Does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking

So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are born to manifest the glory that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;

It’s in all of us.

And as we let our own light shine,

We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we’re liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.

– Marianne Williamson

I believe it was John Bradshaw who defined humility as “knowing your place and taking it.” Unfortunately, it seems we often mistakenly assume humility is a meek, one-down position, essentially playing small. However, I would argue that this is simply the other side of the pride coin, not humility. Bear with me on this one. Being an Enneagram 2 and studying some of that material really helped bring this home for me. To put it succinctly, the downfall of the type 2 is pride. What’s interesting is that the goal of most type 2’s- achieving interpersonal perfection (being all things to all people all the time)- usually results in a vacillation between feelings of self-aggrandizement and feelings of deep inadequacy. The pride, though, isn’t encompassed in either of these but lives instead in the belief underlying the goal itself. The problem here is the idea that it is even possible to be all things to all people. The downfall of perfectionism isn’t the striving; it’s the driving belief that perfection might actually be possible. That, my friends, is pride. At the root, that’s what is really getting us in trouble.

So, let me circle back around to how this connects to the mantra I mentioned at the beginning. Many of us get overwhelmed by whatever is bothering us because it feels bigger than us. It feels like it’s too big for us to handle or like it will never end. Sometimes it simply feels so important in the moment that we lose sight of ourselves. Sometimes, for a time, it can even eclipse us and our feelings of worthiness completely. But this simply isn’t true. I love how author Bonnie McCliss says it, “Getting loud and proud is the way you begin the boomerang process for your energy…Get louder than whatever is haunting you.” I’m bigger than that person’s judgments of me (and they’re bigger than mine while we’re at it!). I’m bigger than that promotion or this job. I’m bigger than this failure or that failure, than this mistake or that mistake, than this fear or that fear, than this imperfection or that imperfection. I’m bigger than this one rejection. I’m bigger than this diagnosis, than this struggle. It doesn’t mean that these things don’t hurt us or even that they don’t matter, per se; the important thing to remember is that I live beyond them. I exist beyond the space that those things can even reach and so do the people around me. When we take this stance, we don’t take things as personally, we take more responsibility for ourselves, and we also loosen the grip of the value we give our own judgments. We live in a place of true humility.

So, next time you find yourself in a shame spiral, give it a shot. Tell yourself that this one thing is not who I am because…

I am bigger than this.

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Relationships: The Birthplace Of Hurt And Of Healing

People are important. On our better days, I think we all know that. But we all probably have those days where we lose sight of that. Those days when everyone is getting on our nerves or when people close to us disappoint us in one way or another. Those days when we seriously consider moving to a far-off cabin in the woods. Another version of that mindset, I think, also rears its head when we’re struggling. There’s some part of us, often, that thinks we can do something on our own that we simply can’t or, at best, shouldn’t. We might even look at someone else going through the same thing and say something wise about needing to lean on other people or that it’s simply impractical for them to try this or that on their own when they can get help (Ironically, counselors can be especially susceptible to this pattern).

One of the most predominant areas of research in the world of counseling, psychology, and social sciences is the topic of attachment.  The most well-known and cited research on the topic comes from John Bowlby. Bowlby’s main contributions to the field came in the 1950’s and since then countless studies have been conducted and books have been written following his initial theoretical framework of attachment.  Essentially, Bowlby explained that the early bond between caregiver and child creates a template for all future relationships. The idea is that when a parent responds to and interacts with a child in a healthy way the child internalizes this safe and secure presence. So, in a sense, this “secure base” is with the child, and later the adult, wherever they go, even when the parent is not present. What all constitutes responding to and interacting with a child in a “healthy way” is a question beyond the scope of this article. However, I have always appreciated the simplicity of the idea that a caregiver’s main job is to teach a child in their early years about the world, specifically whether the world is a relatively safe place and whether people can be trusted.

As a therapist who primarily works with individuals struggling with the effects of traumatic stress and/or PTSD, I’ve come to appreciate the impact of attachment from multiple angles. Even since I started my career almost a decade ago, I have seen a significant increase in the attention given to early attachment and developmental trauma (simply defined by some as trauma that occurs in the first three to five years of life). Research continues to illustrate how our early relationships affect us for a lifetime. The world of trauma and PTSD research takes this step further, as well, by spotlighting the impact of others on an adult’s ability to cope with trauma and traumatic stressors. Peter Levine, the originator of Somatic Experiencing, even includes the clause “in the absence of an empathetic witness” in his definition of what constitutes calling an experience “trauma.” Also, while I’m not sure there has been much research on this yet, it is a somewhat universally known phenomenon among those that work directly with trauma that kindness, even from strangers, can have a significant positive impact on an individual working through a traumatic experience. I continue to be amazed that while hearing details about terrifying and incredibly difficult circumstances how I will often witness a client light up when they talk about that one relatively kind stranger that showed up somewhere in the story. To be clear, I’m not talking about cape-worthy heroics here. Some of the most common kindnesses I’ve heard about are things like stopping and asking if they’re okay or if they need anything or just sitting with them and perhaps holding their hand until the ambulance or police get there.

This one actually popped up for me recently in a very real way. A few months ago, I was in a car accident. Thanks to my background in trauma, I knew that PTSD and the effects of traumatic experiences are primarily physiological/body-based, so very physically disruptive/high impact, violent experiences (just check out one of those crash test dummy videos if you balk at the idea of calling a car accident violent) are not something to take lightly in regards to traumatic impact. So, even though I was shaken up at the time, I was paying extra close attention to how my mind and body were responding to all that was going on around me. As I mentioned above, I also knew that the people I would interact with right after the accident would play a significant role. Then came Jo, the traffic cop. She may have been the kindest stranger I have ever met and the impact and relief of that fact was palpable for me. There is no doubt in my mind that her kindness and the role she played in this event had a huge positive impact on my response in the moment and later.

This isn’t only true during traumatic experiences, though. The power of the positive impact people can have in our healing journey also often occurs after the fact. This is where a lot of counselors will bring up attachment theory, especially as it pertains to the therapist-client relationship. The reality is that we bring our attachment patterns and style into all of our relationships. Due to the extra vulnerability present in the psychotherapy relationship, these patterns and habits play an even more distinct role. The majority of our hurt happens in relationship. A human being, whether a main attachment figure or not, almost always plays some type of role in our trauma narrative. As I alluded to above, these interactions teach us something about how safe people are in general and more broadly how safe the world is. It follows then that healing must happen in relationship. We can’t restore our faith in humanity without, well, humanity. And that’s a key element to the counseling process. If the hurt happens in relationship so does the healing. This is why it never works to go at it on our own. This is where the good stuff happens in counseling- in the container of connection, empathy, seeing, and knowing that happens between therapist and client. And it’s a truly beautiful process to be a part of.

If you’re interested in reading more about attachment and developmental trauma, I recommend the new book by Kathy Kain and Stephen Terrell “Nurturing Resilience” and “Healing Developmental Trauma” by Laurence Heller. You can also learn more on Diane Poole Heller’s website which includes a free attachment style quiz.

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Is Sex/Porn Addiction A Thing?

There is some controversy in the counseling world over whether sex and porn addictions should be recognized and treated. The primary objection raised by opponents of sex addiction services is based in a cultural sensitivity to pathologizing or moralizing anything sexual; and for good reason. For decades, individuals who experienced same-sex arousal were treated as degenerates in our country. They were written off either as maladaptive biological anomalies or morally bankrupt and spiritually inferior.

Long and swerving has been the effort to engender understanding and compassion in the eyes of our culture on the subject of sexual experience; it is a struggle that remains incomplete. Regardless of political or religious worldview, understanding the underpinnings of any kind of sexual experience must be a work of compassion and humility. But has our struggle against meanness and our desire to defend the innocent developed into a paranoia that denies help to those suffering unjustly at the hands of trauma and dependency? There may be reason to believe that it has.

Opponents of sex addiction treatment see themselves as freedom fighters. They are skeptical of anything that guides or restricts sexual expression. But freedom is precisely what the addict does not have. Opponents of the idea of sexual addictions want people to be free to live out their sexual lives the way they want. Sex addiction therapists want precisely the same thing for their clients.

The man who is looking down the barrel of his second divorce, who is going to lose his children, the career he’s labored for since his youth, and his connection to yet another partner, all because, despite his desperate attempts to stop, he cannot help meeting with a prostitute twice a week, is not a man experiencing sexual freedom. Neither is the woman who cries alone in her apartment after her 24th anonymous hookup this month. She is desperate for intimacy, trapped in a pattern of power-seeking behaviors she learned in her abuse as a twelve year-old, and she is the furthest thing in the world from being sexually free and alive. To the contrary, when she attempts sex in the context of genuine intimacy and vulnerability, she feels emotionally closed off and sexually numb. By their own assessment, these men and women do not engage in these behaviors because they want to do so, they engage in them because they have to in order to function.

Sex addiction therapy, like all other therapies, is concerned primarily with freedom. The man who uses sex with his wife to regulate his own emotions, but who longs to learn to experience sex with her differently, is not free to be himself sexually; he is in bondage and oppressed. It is only from a position of freedom that one is able to choose with efficacy the behaviors in which she would like to engage and to eschew the behaviors which do not align with her own goals and desires. Morally right sexual behavior is never defined by a sex addiction therapist. Prescriptions and proscriptions concerning what to do with sexual freedom is a values conversation; these are categorically not the concern of the therapist. Rather, sexual addictions, like all other addictions, are defined by the individual experiencing them. Clients identify for themselves which behaviors they want to reduce, eliminate, or experience differently.

So what is an addiction? How do you know it’s an addiction and not just a bad habit? According to the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals, those struggling with undesired sexual behaviors can identify the struggle as an addiction by meeting 3 of the following 10 criteria:

  1. Powerlessness/Loss of ControlDefined by a clearly identified behavior that you do more than you intend or want.
  2. Compulsive BehaviorA pattern of out of control behavior over time.
  3. Efforts to StopRepeated specific attempts to stop the behavior which fail.
  4. Loss of TimeSignificant amounts of time lost doing and/or recovering from the behavior.
  5. PreoccupationObsessing about or because of the behavior.
  6. Inability to Fulfill ObligationsThe behavior interferes with work, school, family, and friends.
  7. Continuation Despite ConsequencesFailure to stop the behavior even though you have problems because of it. (social, legal, financial, physical, work)
  8. EscalationNeed to make the behavior more intense, more frequent, or more risky.
  9. LossesLosing, limiting, or sacrificing valued parts of life such as hobbies, family, relationships, and work.
  10. WithdrawalStopping behavior causes considerable distress, anxiety, restlessness, irritability, or physical discomfort.

Men and women suffering from these criteria deserve freedom and healing, but they often find themselves abandoned by a culture that is afraid to talk about sex being a problem. Whole-hearted, integrated, and healed adults are free. They are free, not to choose their feelings, but to choose their behaviors. They can move towards sex when they want and set it aside when they want. They are free to use sex to enrich their lives in the way they choose, rather than being at its mercy as their lives fall apart.

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