thoughts Archives - Francine Kelley, LCPC, SEP, RYT500

The Trauma Brain Project

I recently had the honor of being on a panel of body-centered therapists following the reading of a play by Dayle Ann Hunt titled The Trauma Brain Project.

This play is powerful, moving, intense. It is the story of a woman’s journey to heal from the repressed memories of early childhood sexual abuse. Dayle takes us on this journey of her own life experience as someone who was diagnosed with Epilepsy as a child, who was also experiencing paralyzing migraines, unexplained nausea, psoriasis, sinus growths and a string of inexplicable conditions that followed her throughout her life; all of which led her (in her 50s) to shadowed memories of what had happened and to eventual healing with somatic therapy.

The cast is amazing. The direction is expert. We the audience were riveted for the duration of the piece.

This play is a must-see for anyone who works with diagnosing illness. Dayle Ann is passionate about medical professionals, therapists, and trauma survivors knowing that their symptoms may be trauma-related. The body and mind do actually influence each other.

If you’re interested in this topic and have any ideas on how this play can be more widely disseminated, please contact D
ayle Ann at www.thetraumabrainproject.com

After the play I led the audience through a few basic exercises to help with regulation since watching anything traumatic can have an impact on our bodies. And it struck home to me again tonight that we are being inundated daily with news of traumatic events. This doesn’t mean we are all traumatized by this, but we are more than likely affected. So I thought I’d quickly share one of the techniques that I shared with the audience in the hopes that you might be able to use it in your day-to-day. It’s called 3-2-1

Look around and notice and briefly describe (e.g. “orange mouse pad”) three (3) things you see
Now listen and name two (2) sounds you hear
And now notice one (1) thing you’re feeling with your sense of touch.

How are you feeling now? You can repeat that sequence one more time if you’re feeling a little more focused or settled than you were before you started.

Namaste.

Making friends with yourself

What would you do if a friend confessed to you that she felt really badly about something she had recently done, or really didn’t like something about herself? You would probably feel some compassion for your friend and try to think of something to say to help her feel better, right? And yet what do you do to yourself when you feel badly about something you’ve done? What thoughts come about when you think of the things about yourself that you don’t like? For most of us those thoughts aren’t about being compassionate!

It’s not a secret that we tend to treat others better than we treat ourselves, often to the point where we can offer compassion to others, but have difficulty offering it to ourselves, or even receiving it from others. How much we are able to love ourselves, I think, is directly related to how much we can allow others to love us. If we beat up on ourselves, on some level we begin to think of ourselves as inherently flawed and unlovable. This breeds suspicion and disbelief when others see us differently. We might even back away from people or relationships because we aren’t used to allowing the light of love and compassion into our hearts. To be loved or lovable is unfamiliar.

A few months ago I told someone that I felt I had made friends with my mind. The person responded first with surprise and then with disappointment. “I wish I could do that,” she said. In our culture we tend to think it unlikely that this could ever be possible. Instead we believe that we need to control, cover up, pretend, medicate and distract. And yet, it is possible. In Buddhism, this acceptance of self is called ‘maitri.’ Pema Chodron, a wonderful Buddhist teacher describes maitri on this youtube video as “unconditional friendliness toward oneself.” She describes maitri as “the basis of compassion.”

Think of it, what if you were able to just think of yourself as being okay? What would your life be like if you were able to cut yourself some slack and just love yourself as you are without trying to be more perfect, more knowledgeable, more attractive… How much stress do we put on ourselves trying to be more or ‘better’ because we are so dissatisfied, so averse to what we are now? And yet, have we even looked to see what is actually here or is it just an assumption that what we are couldn’t possibly be enough?

So, how to go about cultivating this self-compassion? I think the first step is really to welcome the possibility that you could be unconditionally friendly towards yourself, that you could be worthy of loving. From there, I’ve found that the universe is only too happy to lead you into more and more lessons and revelations. Sometimes the lessons are easy and sometimes not. It is not that life suddenly becomes a bed of roses, but that you begin to see the difficulties as more ways of deepening in relationship with yourself and with others. Any relationship takes effort and most relationships work better if the focus is on the other person’s positive qualities vs. judging their flaws.

In my experience, a simple way to begin to cultivate self-compassion is to spend some time acknowledging the aspects of yourself that you actually do appreciate. Since we have such a tendency to judge things as good or bad, let me be clear that the other aspects aren’t bad per se. It is just easier at first to love ourselves based on those things we perceive as ‘positive’ qualities. It might take some time (it took me days the first time I tried to come up with one thing), but just finding one thing you appreciate about yourself is like clearing a little hole on the grimy window of our past perception so that the light can begin to shine through.

Make a phrase with your one ‘positive’ quality (or more if you have more than one). For me it was “I am compassionate.” Notice how your body feels when you say this phrase. And when you find your mind going into the place of self-judgment or self-criticism, let this phrase be your ray of light. Once that tiny ray of light is experienced, the shadows become less dense and the darkness begins to give way. Repeat your phrase whenever you think of it. Eventually you might find it pops up on its own!

In the next few blog entries I’ll be offering more tools that have helped me to bring light into my shadows. If you have other tips, comments or experiences to offer, please feel free to share those as well by clicking on the Comments link below.

Until next time, may you live with ease ☺

Habits of The Mind

A friend asked recently on Facebook whether our lives are predetermined or whether we have a choice over what happens to us. I’m not sure I can answer this question, but what I do know is that we have a choice over our expectations of what should be.

Many so-called “esoteric” traditions (which are becoming a lot less esoteric and a lot more mainstream now) teach that a thought is the precursor to its manifestation in form. So, what you think becomes reality – especially the more energy you put into it. At the very least, I believe that what you think makes an imprint on your body in terms of its energy levels and functioning. At the very most, I believe you can strongly influence the life that manifests for you by taking charge of your thoughts and perceptions and therefore your expectations. Can you control how other people react to you? No, but you can control how you react and interact with your world.

Yoga teaches that thoughts are powerful. It also teaches that we have limiting thought forms (samskaras) of which we are often unaware that affect and even dictate our ways of being and our perceptions of the world. These thought forms limit our experience of the world and we imagine that these thoughts are truths rather than just habits of the mind. “This is just how things are,” we tell ourselves, “Nothing is going to change.” “Love hurts.” “I’ll never have enough money.” “Work isn’t supposed to be fun.” And that’s what you get – more of the same. This becomes so habituated that we don’t even notice that we’re doing it. Thus begins a cycle, turning around and around on this wheel of life without knowing why we’re on the wheel or how to get off.

Where did those thoughts come from anyway? Who decided they were true? What if you could allow for the possibility of something being different? What if, without necessarily knowing how to change it, you could just entertain the possibility that things could change for the better?

The first step to making a change is mindfulness of these habitual limiting thoughts. Meditation helps with this, but I’ve found the most helpful thing is to listen to myself talk. Wayne Dyer talks about this in his DVD set “Excuses Begone.” The things that pop out of our mouths in everyday conversation can shed a lot of light on what thought patters are revolving in your head. For example in yoga practice I used to say: “Oh yea, that’s my bad hip.” Yikes! Poor hip. I wasn’t allowing it the possibility of being anything else. Have you said or heard people say: “Yea, life sucks and then you die.” Is that really what you want to manifest?

Some might argue that people don’t really mean it when they say those things – it’s just a saying. Check in with your body the next time you say one of these careless phrases and see if your body knows that you don’t really mean it. “Life sucks” has a totally different impact on your body than “I love being alive!” or “Amazing things happen all the time.” Close your eyes and try it – say the phrases and notice how they impact your body. You might be surprised.

If you don’t really mean it, don’t say it. Just like your thoughts, your words have power. If you say it enough you’ll eventually believe it. Repeat something that builds you up instead of tearing you down – make a habit of being open to amazing possibilities. You might be surprised at what can happen.