Blog - Embodied Personal and relational Healing with Rosalie Corame * * * Create magical new relationships with yourself and with the people in your life

May 21, 2020August 7, 2020

How Trauma/Freeze/Nervous System Dysregulation causes Syndromal symptoms

This explanation is based on the Polyvagal theory which says that there are 3 branches of the nervous system:
Dorsal Vagal, which is responsible for sleep and freeze. The way this system responds to threat is to freeze – “play dead” more or less – slow everything way down.
Sympathetic, which is responsible for activity, getting things done. The way this system responds to thread is to fight or flee – ramp everything up.
“Social Engagement nervous system”, which includes the Ventral Vagal system plus several muscle groups in the head and neck, is responsible for pleasant, authentic and collaborative interactions between humans (all mammals actually).

And this explanation is also based on the understanding of how traumatic memories or programs get implanted into our body systems:
When there’s a threat, and we can’t negotiate out of it using our social engagement system, then we go into fight or flight mode. But if for whatever reason or set of reasons, we can’t successfully fight or flee (we might not even try because we are so outgunned, as if I am a young child under threat by a caregiver) then at some point our system engages the Freeze response. However, since the threat is still real, our sympathetic fight/flight system is still running full tilt. This would allow us to quickly respond in an act of attack or escape if an opportunity presented itself. So the Sympathetic system is running full tilt and the Freeze is also running full tilt.

Now, if there is never a satisfactory and comprehensive enough resolution to this traumatic experience, wherein I am seen and heard and can feel and release all of the fear, helplessness, terror, anger, and overwhelm that showed up in me, if that safe resolution does not happen, then we get the ingredients for PTSD, or generally for unresolved trauma. In this case, the reality of the threat continues to live in the body even when the threat is far away geographically and/or far gone in the past. That means that inside my system, my flight/flight system continues to run full tilt and my freeze system also continues to run full tilt.

March 27, 2020August 7, 2020

Don’t Go Faster, Go Slower

One of the ways that my trauma pattern shows up is that I feel a constant nagging pressure to “Do something, get things done!” If I am sitting still, there is a voice, perhaps even a chorus of voices, shouting at me, “You are failing! You are letting yourself and everyone else down!”

And part of what makes things tricky is that there is definitely truth in that self-accusation. There are many things that need to be done, with real world consequences when they are not done.

But the pattern of pushing myself to work, work, work, do, do, do – that pattern is not actually effective. I can push, work, and do to some extent but frequently I just stop. Or I push myself to get moving but then I can’t even get started because I am overwhelmed by all of it.

February 3, 2018July 3, 2020

The Light and Dark Poetry Process

One of the goals of trauma healing is to allow what is hidden in our bodies to be felt, expressed, and released, as safely and gently as possible. We have hidden feelings, emotions and impulses leftover from past traumas and stresses. We also hide some or many of our current feelings, emotions and impulses from ourselves, out of a self-protective habit.

This Poetry Process is one way that I have found to incrementally surface hidden experiences. The process is simple. I give myself the assignment to create a Dark Poem, and then to create a Light Poem. [or vice versa, either can come first.] “Create” is not exactly the right word. My intention is to allow some of my uncomfortable – or pleasant – feelings or experiences to surface. So in a way I am allowing the poem, more than creating it. “Poem” in this context does not mean structured verse – it simply means free-flowing non-structured language that expresses an inner experience, often in metaphor.
At the time, I may be feeling neutral – neither joyful nor upset. I may not be aware that I am feeling anything at all. When the poetry comes out, it can sometimes be surprising, enlivening, or tender.

Here are examples of a Light and Dark Poem that have arisen in response to this process over the past months.

LIGHT:

There are little light energy beings
Inside of me or around me.
Perhaps they are me.
But no matter what
They scurry about playfully

Little Skittle Scurry Furry Feet

DARK:

Gravity is too much
Entropy is too much
Gravity
Entropy
Falling down a long flight of stairs into a dark dank basement
It’s like that.