Katharine Bainbridge

Compassionate Jungian Analysis, Somatic Experiencing, Buddhist Psychotherapy & Energy Medicine ~ for sensitive spirits ~

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Gentle Yoga: A Nurturing Practice for Our Trauma Outside of Session Time

May 18, 2019 by Katharine

We now know that our bodies both contain and store emotional pain as well as our traumatic memories. People often don’t appreciate that symptoms of PTSD can be experienced, oddly enough, as both intrusive as well as avoidant.

Intrusive symptoms can be experienced as flashbacks, nightmares, as well as physical pain and anxiety including panic attacks. Avoidant symptoms, which in my experience is much more common, look more like disassociation, disconnection, a feeling of being numb or checked out. Sometimes people with PTSD are so numb that they even believe that they are actually doing ok! Although people can report to me that they “feel ok,” we might talk together and begin to notice that there is actually an absence of joy, desire, or even any interest to connect with others. In other words, “I feel OK, ” can often be code for, “I actually don’t feel much of anything.”

Fortunately, neuroscience, especially polyvagal theory, has helped us tremendously in understanding how PTSD can be both expressed as activation and stress in the body as well as numbness, avoidant feelings such as isolation and numbing behavior. Resolving trauma creates new pathways of feeling safe and connected- even within ourselves. No longer do people need to feel isolated and lonely because of trauma. Trauma finally has a way to resolve itself. That solution, that I practice with both myself as well as with my patients, is called Somatic Experiencing.

According to Dr. Peter Levine, the originator and developer of Somatic Experiencing, trauma is basic survival energy that has been locked in the body and nervous system. He is talking about life energy- literally the energy of life itself. This energy is powerful and it takes time for people with trauma to be able to build capacity enough to feel it so that they might once again feel alive. Paradoxically, it can be this very life energy that feels quite threatening and even terrifying to survivors of trauma.

Little by little, stitch by stitch, in our work together my patients and I slowly begin to work with their bodies capacity to feel this powerful life energy by simply focusing on sensations in the here and now.

It is not unusual for people with trauma to feel that their body is the very thing that has betrayed them in the first place. Usually, especially when there has been a great deal of trauma, the body does not feel safe enough to experience pleasure or pain. There can be an emphasis to focus on what is wrong or what might be wrong both mentally as well a physically. Traditional psychotherapy is often geared toward the focus of what is “wrong.” For trauma survivors, this focus is not helpful at all. The nervous system is already hyper vigilant toward what is “wrong.” What if we focused on what is actually right? What if we focused on what is sane, stable or working? What if we befriended our bodies and discovered that it has been doing a wonderful job taking care of us and helping us to survive but it needs our gentle help in relaxing and feeling safe again?

Unfortunately, for many people who have only experienced “verbal” or talk therapy, implicit memories evoked while talking more often than not bring with the memory a sense of hyperarousal of their sympathetic nervous system and a sense of helplessness, fear or shame and rage. In and of themselves these emotional states are not necessarily a problem. When they are chronically experienced alongside the memory of a trauma, these emotional states become problematic in that that there is no way out of this repetition of the original trauma by focusing on those emotional states. The body needs a new “brain/body map” in order to feel relief. A different solution is needed. We do not need to look directly into the face of Medusa and turn to stone. In the office with me, we focus on this innate solution. The body organically knows how to resolve the trauma. I am literally just a witness who encourages the body into its own wisdom and subsequent recovery. People often feel an immediate shift in their state of being after an SE session with me. I encourage befriending their own bodies outside of the office in between session time with me.

Gentle Yoga classes can provide people with a slowed down sense of themselves in a body. Following the breath while focusing on what part of your body is moving allows for a kind of synchronization that our nervous systems respond to as both sane and safe.

When we are dysregulated, we feel neither safe nor sane. Indeed, we are actually not even in the present moment. As a Buddhist, this is the very definition of insanity. The mind and body cannot relax. We are unable to be right where we are without judgment. We are not synchronized in body and mind.

If you are interested in trauma work, but are too afraid to approach your own body or don’t even know where to start, try attending a gentle yoga class. Begin to make friends with your own body. See what you notice, or not, while in class. Simply notice where you are when you begin class. Just notice yourself on the mat. Take time to slow down even more during class to check in with how your body might be feeling right here and now.

Most importantly, notice how you are experiencing yourself in a body after your class. Was there a shift? Were you able to experience anything pleasurable? Did you have any feelings of being safe? Were there moments of feeling unsafe, uncomfortable or panicky?

Working with resolving trauma can actually be easy. It does not have to be hard. You have already been through the hardest part. Whatever happened already happened. Your body just needs some very specific attention and care to complete whatever was unable to complete in order to defend and/ or protect yourself. Actually being in your body is a very empowering experience. Trust me, you are worthy of being able to feel empowered and alive in a body. You have already made it this far. You and your body are really pretty darn amazing! Making friends with your body is actually the very first step in healing trauma.

I love Nina Simone singing Ain’t Got No, I Got Life. In the beginning of the song she sings about what she “ain’t got.” This is very much the language of trauma-loneliness, alienation and a profound sense of loss. By the end of the song she celebrates her body and that she indeed has life, herself and most of all, she has her freedom; no one can take that away from her. The celebration of feeling alive in a body is very much how the resolution of trauma can feel. Enjoy.



Filed Under: uncategorized Tagged With: Psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, trauma, trauma healing, yoga

You Deserve To Be Right Here….

July 21, 2015 by Katharine

Oak-Tree-RootsOne of the issues that I see most often when working with sensitive men, women and children is the energetic issue of feeling safe enough to inhabit their own bodies.  It is also true that they do not feel that they deserve to be here on earth.  In other words, they aren’t entirely living here.

How this imbalance often shows up is in the emotional body as anxiety and a general feeling of being ungrounded.

The first chakra in our bodies is located at the base of the spine.  This chakra is our “root” chakra.  The sanskrit name is Muladhara and it’s central issue is related to survival.

Our chakras, or energy centers in the body (I work with a 12 chakra system), have certain inalienable rights that are linked with them.  We often think of this first chakra as being connected to stability, grounding, physical health, prosperity and trust, but it also says something essential in our development- “I deserve to be here.”

The developmental stage connected with first chakra issues are linked to being in the womb to about 1 year old.  This is the chakra of earth and the physical body.  When we are in the womb, our physical body is forming.  We are becoming a form.   In utero, we are entirely dependent on our mother’s bodies- her form.   If, for whatever reason, our mothers were anxious about being pregnant, anxious about our birth, or not particularly interested in being pregnant we can be deeply influenced as we develop.  We may feel ambivalent about what is occurring on a cellular level.  When this chakra is unbalanced, meaning developmentally there has been trauma from before one is born or from birth into one’s first year of life,  issues manifest and centralize around the basic need of self preservation.

How this might look psychologically is being overly focused on our physical body and material world. The story of Goldilocks comes to mind:  “Is is too warm or too hot?”  “Is this too cold?”  “I am always hungry or never hungry”, “I am afraid that I will never have enough money (read security).”  One might also appear to be restless, spacy, perhaps underweight or have issues of anorexia.  On the other hand, this chakra may show this kind of imbalance in the opposite direction of showing excessive characteristics such as heaviness, sluggishness, obesity, issues around hoarding, an overly focused energy around materialism, and even greed.

When I contemplate this expressions of an imbalanced 1st chakra, I do not need to just think of who might consult me for healing work.  I think of our culture as a whole.

This disconnect from a healthy feeling of “I deserve to be here” might create the reality that we find ourselves in as a collective.   If I don’t feel that I truly deserve to be here, I might not care about how I treat my environment.  I might not see earth as a living, breathing body like my own.  I might mistreat her or disregard her.   I might not even trust her. I might not know what or when is enough.  I don’t feel safe enough to be content with that I already have.  I need more to feel safe.     Landfills are full of things that we don’t need and probably never did.  We might over fish our oceans until there is nothing left. We might see the financial bottom line as being more important than leaving our children an earth that they can inhabit.

When this first chakra is balanced, we can begin to feel safe being in our bodies and on Earth as our home- our natural Mother.  We can also recognize when we are simply hungry and just fill that need, or find a sweater when we are cold.

What I notice in those whom I do healing work with is that their anxiety is decreased immediately.  People often report feeling less disconnected from themselves.  One woman whom I did healing sessions with stopped having the impulse to compulsively shop for things that she did not need for herself or her son.  Another woman decided that she actually hoarded her money.  Although she was always in fear of not having enough, she decided that it was time to start spending money to enjoy her life and not just hide it under her mattress for a “rainy day.”

I see the chakras as a kind of spiritual staircase.  We have to start at the beginning.  We cannot climb the spiritual ladder unless we have a solid ground underneath our feet.  Without this trust in our bodies and our being here on the earth- spiritual development might even become dangerous.  If we skip this basic step of  “I deserve to be here” then spiritual practices can become a means of escaping earth.  This isn’t the point of a spiritual life at all.

At some point, even when you reach the highest spiritual high, you need to come back down to earth and live your life.  If one is not trusting of this life more anxiety occurs.  As I always say, our symptoms are all gifts.  They alert us to where we are no longer balanced and where healing is pointed to.  Are we ever finished healing?  No, I don’t think so.  I believe that this why we are all here in the first place- to heal and then to help others heal in whatever ways we can.

 

Filed Under: uncategorized Tagged With: Chakra Healing, Energy Medicine, Healing, Jungian Analysis, Psychotherapy

Why Concepts Don’t Necessarily Work For Healing…..

October 14, 2014 by Katharine

concepts
I had been wondering how to explain to patients why concepts seem to naturally obstruct healing.  When I am doing Energy Balancing work, I am not necessarily interested in “the story”.

On the other hand, if a patient is in Analysis with me, I am very interested in “the story.”

A few years ago when I was contemplating studying Energy Healing work, I wondered if it would be helpful to me as an Analyst.   Shamans would often consult nature when they had a question about something.  If one was open, nature has its way of confirming or denying a situation.  A message seemed clear to me- Energy Healing work would take me where I wanted to go much, much faster.

One way that I understand this today is to understand the limitations of our conceptual mind.  Concepts are important to try to communicate ideas but in the worst sense they can become a means of limiting our understanding of our world and what is possible.  If we don’t have a concept or if we don’t understand a concept does that mean that something is or is not helpful?

As I progressed along my Buddhist path I found that I could not think the way that I had been trained to think in my consulting room.  For awhile, I worried about this.  I wondered if my “thoughts” would come back?  If they were really gone, where did they go?

I trusted that if I sat in the space of not knowing anything that usually some wisdom would arise.  I began to trust more and more this space of not knowing.  Actually, I did not have much of a choice in the matter.  My thoughts were not thinking the way that I “wanted” them to “think.”   I had to give up.

Most of us are not used to hanging out without concept.  It makes us nervous.  But, without concept, we are with things as they are- without placing an idea on top of things.  Simply put, an apple is an apple.  We may have thoughts about that apple…. “I like green ones and not red ones”, “My grandmother made wonderful apple pie”, “One time I found a worm in an apple, ” “Grainy apples don’t taste very good.”   Because of our concept of apple, it is difficult to just be with an apple as if for the first time- to be with the “appleness” of apple.

Psychology can be the same.  Words, concepts, ideas, methods- all are ways to try to understand mind and why it might be doing what it is doing.

But what to do when concept falls away?   How can we experience one another without them?

It is often our own ideas about things that limit us from being directly with what is without judgement.  Can we be curious about ourselves in a way that promotes a kindness for our own confusion and the confusion of others?

Life is already pretty complicated as it is without laying things on top of it.

I read recently something that not only answered my question about where did my thoughts go, but also, indicated where true healing and insight takes place.

In his book RULING YOUR WORLD, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche explains that conceptual mind is like a spaceship trying to land on the sun.  The brilliance and heat of the sun burns the spaceship up before it can land.  That brilliance and heat of the sun is called wisdom.

To be close to the wisdom of the mind burns up concept.   People, including myself, have often had the experience while being in close proximity to a truly enlightened being that their “mind stops.”   What they are saying is that the brilliance of that teachers wisdom mind is so vast that conceptual mind burns up and stops in their presence.

One of the things that I love most about Energy Healing is that it bypasses conceptual mind.  I witness the wisdom of the patients mind burn up and heal concepts that are no longer viable for the person any longer.

My losing my “ability to think” had very little to do with any psychological concepts that I might have learned about in my training to become an Analyst .  Instead, a rather interesting thing was taking place… I was losing my conceptual mind to be much closer to wisdom.  This experience was a kind of liberation.

The rays of the sun were burning up that which is not entirely dependable.  It is without these concepts that I am much more able to “be with” healing taking place with Energy Work.  Without concept I can witness what is and how it innately knows how to self correct.   This innate ability to self correct is, I believe, an expression of wisdom itself.

Filed Under: uncategorized Tagged With: Chakra Healing, Energy Medicine, Healing, Jungian Analysis, Psychotherapy

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