My understanding is that the body IS the mind. The cells in an organ or a muscle or joint receive emotional peptides when they are pumped out from the hypothalamus.

I think all these biochemical changes could take place through conscious control of one's emotions and changing how one reacts through the force of one's will, over time. But why make it any harder than it should be.

Here's an interesting article on yoga and PTSD. Yoga postures, poses, breathing, etc. can all be used to help normalize the neurological processes, and help a person self-regulate their emotions. Twisted Yoga | Learning Center

Brain abnormalities consistent with PTSD can make it more difficult to create with deliberate intent: The human brain and the law of attraction - Psychology - Helium - by Laurel Cozzuli

Excerpts from that article:

I'm also on the successful living 1 module (second time around).

When a person is addicted to negative thinking, it is like they are shipwrecked. The traumatic event is like the event of the shipwreck that caused a person to see the world in a negative way, and look for negative patterns and always connect the dots from one negative thought to another.

The person who is totally overwhelmed and depressed can't find anything to cling to, so they desperately tread water.

The person who just hums along in the doldrums of low-grade anxiety and blanket cynicism finds pieces of the shipwrecked boat to cling to. These pieces floating in the water are like the negative thoughts of the person.

Like the cliche of the battered person going back to their abuser, the person who is addicted to negative thinking hangs onto their negative thoughts, because those thoughts feel safe and familiar.

Only when there is no more pleasure in beating oneself up with the negative thought, will the person look up and see a way to get to real safety.

Belle,

Thank you for this info. Regarding :

Sadly, these patters are pervasive and endure even after years of cognitive-behavioral interventions, including LOA. . . . In a nutshell, the person that has the most difficult time putting LOA into action is the one that 1) has a hyperactive amygdula, 2) has a low functioning prefrontal cortex, 3) has impaired functioning in the anterior cingulate, and 4) has a nucleus accumbens that is "running the show."

I was able to make a tad of progress using faith and giving my problems to God when they seemed overwhelming, but still that did not do much to keep me from repeating bad patterns no matter how much I tried. The Master-Key System did help me and then while I was studying that, I tried PATHS.

Within 2 weeks on the PATHS self esteem module, I was making changes by leaps and bounds after about 5 years of getting worse and worse with the negative cycling. I doubt anything else would have given me the same effect. (To be fair I never tried prescriptions besides a few uses of xanex and a muscle relaxer - not sure what consistant use of a psych prescription would have done for me but I was against trying it.)

Jessica

Jessica,

I just find that the scientific explanations for why some people have a harder time letting go of negative thoughts allow me to forgive myself more readily for any hurdles or overthinking. It really is no different from the "emotional scale" because you are jumping from anxiety or anger to acceptance. From acceptance it is a lot easier to go to joy than it is directly from anger or anxiety.

Good point, Belle.

I wanted to share that I am now into my second month on the Deserving module and would recommend it for issues discussed in this thread


XO Jessica

Cool, I will consider it.

Jessica,

I've added Deserving to my new theater (which also contains Mood Elevator, Ultimate Body, and Defying Gravity).

I can't wait to see what happens.

Wonderful things continue to unfold for me as I progress with the deserving mod. I am being better to myself as well. I don't think you will be dissappointed

Well, I certainly need Deserving.

I watched it once and the inner negative voice started to loudly complain. This part of me is very "sour grapes." My inner negative self is getting quite worn out by the successful living module, but it seems to really rail against the Deserving module!

I realized that my coping mechanism to get out of the pain of past trauma was always the "sour grapes" defense. I would look at what the other person had that I did not have (and often these were intangibles, such as more supportive friends or family, rather than material things) and make myself feel better by saying "well, what they have must be bad, because if it is good, I can't handle the arbitrariness of them having it and not me."

I believed I was powerless to just easily have an uncomplicated, relatively happy and painless life, because I didn't see the others doing anything to deserve it any more than I was doing. So, there had to be a "logical reason." When I was a child, I did not understand certain truths such as like attracting like, so I made up other "logical" reasons to explain and cope with the world.

I decided that things I wanted, desirable things, must be "bad," because I couldn't make them happen for me to save my life. I saw others having them, so I decided that they must have been doing something "wrong" to get it. So then, if I decided I still wanted one of those "bad" desirable things, I had to have a whole maze of struggles and difficulties before I would let myself have it.* And if something good just fell in my lap, you could bet money on it that I would psychically sabotage it. You see, I got all of my ego strength from telling myself that I was "different" from all those "bad" people out there with the happier lives!

*And of course, I would never let myself have it, because then what would I do with myself? I wasn't equipped to live life through anything other than the paradigm that "people who get the goodies are bad, and the good people live a life of emotional poverty."

This is how I have created just about every dissatisfaction in my life, and why I have struggled more with habituating the Successful Living module than any other module.

Probably the most painful way that my belief system of undeservingness has manifested in my life is in all types of relationships-- family, friends, work, and dating. I now see how any one of those could have been successful, but I believed that it would have made me a "bad person" had these been successful relationships. So I made them go awry in a multitude of ways to maintain my identity as "superior" to all those "idiots" and "bad" people who had pleasant, happy relationships.

At this point, I am not really confident that any of my current human interactions is capable of overcoming the months or years of "struggle" energy I put into it. I fear that my belief that if any of them magically started to go well would make me a bad person set in motion things that I cannot now undo with a change in my core belief structure, but I'm open to hope so.

I'm almost through Waking the Tiger, by Peter A. Levine. I'm not going to go into a full summary in this post, but I will start posting a few of the insights from the book that I think will be most transferable to the PATHS/RDT modality.

The basic premise of the book is that trauma in humans is the result of a natural physiological process gone awry with the help of our conscious minds. Like other mammals, humans have the instinctual (reptilian) brain, the limbic (emotional or mammalian) brain, but we also have the neo-cortex to complicate and enrich life.

Levine believes his method of re-negotiating traumas through the "felt sense" of the body is the way to bring the natural process out of the frozen deer-in-the-headlights phase, to a healthy resolution. Levine also believes that the hysterics of therapies that make a person re-live or re-enact the original traumatizing experience actually can re-traumatize a person. Those methods aren't a whole lot better than the unconscious re-enactment traumatized people do when they continually sprain the same ankle, create the same lousy job, or get in the same car "accident," over and over again.

What can this do for PATHS, or a PTSD module?

1. The module can help the person manage the effects of trauma: the emotional dysregulation can be corrected through the right behavioral and biochemical instructions to the brain, weird symptoms can be managed, etc. This will enable a person to function a whole lot better and gain insight into the landscape of their trauma, so that the "re-enactment compulsion" (what Lynn Grabhorn calls the "vibration forever seeking its match") is switched off to allow the person to at least quit screwing up their life before the root is addressed.

2. Address the physiological root of the trauma, what Levine's method aims to do, but swifter and more effectively with use of RDT. The way I understand this, the problem is less about certain "triggers" for a person, it is more about addressing the physiological reasons why a person can never seem to respond to the "trigger" a different way, despite all the cognitive and emotional work on that issue in the world. The physiological picture of trauma is the person is physically stuck in the "freeze" or deer-in-the-headlights response.

To be continued....

I have finished the book Waking the Tiger. After reading it, I stand by my initial concept that PATHS can effectively heal trauma by (1) providing relief from, and correction of, the emotional dysregulation and (2) addressing the physiological core of trauma.

Here's more detail to back up my idea, with select quotes from the book, and my interpretations.

"The roots of trauma lie in our instinctual physiologies....post-traumatic symptoms are, fundamentally, incomplete physiological responses suspended in fear. Reactions to life-threatening situations remain symptomatic until they are completed." (Levine p. 34)

When a person or animal is in fear, there are three choices: fight, flight, or freeze. This is physiological. Trauma and PTSD are when the body's nervous system stays in "freeze" and is unable to discharge the extreme buildup of energy from the frightening event. The frightening event need not be life-threatening from an objective standpoint.

Levine says a “broad range” of events can cause trauma in humans. It goes beyond just war veterans, incest survivors, and victims of rape or abuse. The following can also cause trauma and PTSD: generational, gestational, birth trauma, loss of a loved one, accidents and injuries, natural disasters, medical or dental surgeries or procedures, divorce, anesthesia, etc. Anything negative can cause us to “freeze.”

“Although we rarely die, humans suffer when we are unable to discharge the energy that is locked in by the freezing response….Rather than moving through the freezing response, as animals do routinely, humans often begin a downward spiral characterized by an increasingly debilitating constellation of symptoms.” (Levine p. 35)

Using the illustrations of a bird that hits a window, is stunned and then flies away, or a group of startled deer, Levine explains what a normal discharge of energy looks like. What animals are able to do is move through the freezing response naturally—they reorient themselves to their environment, their bodies shake and tremble spontaneously as their nervous system discharges the extra energy, and then they might need a nap, but then the animal will be normal.

Levine also explains how being able to respond effectively in danger instead of freezing will leave a human being less apt to post-traumatic stress from the event. But when a human has long-standing trauma, most things they try to do to become “unfrozen” will just make the trauma more firmly entrenched, however, the body will give the human many chances to finally break free. “The drive to complete the freezing response remains active no matter how long it has been in place.” (Levine p. 111)

According to Levine, the traumatized human will exhibit four main types of dysfunction:
1. Hyperarousal [which over time leads to hypervigilance, anxiety, etc.]
2. Constriction [i.e., neck pain, thyroid deficiency, adrenal fatigue]
3. Dissociation [feeling like you’re not in your body]
4. Freezing [immobility, helplessness]

Eventually, a person can suffer from a myriad of emotional and physical problems, including repeating the same hard life lessons repeatedly, even though they “should” know better by now.

“Compulsive re-enactment” is the same as what Lynn Grabhorn terms the “vibration forever seeking its match.”

Levine says: “In any re-enactment there will always be underlying and unconscious patterns of events and beliefs that seemingly have their own power to create our experiences according to their dictates….Re-enactment represents the organism’s attempt to complete the natural cycle of activation and deactivation that accompanies the response to threat in the wild.” (Levine p. 187)

The problem when humans are physiologically, vibrationally, compulsively driven to re-enact the trauma, they usually don’t resolve it, they just make it worse. Rather than using the cognitive gifts we have as humans to make a new choice that frees our bodies from the stuck energy, our higher thought faculty often compounds the problem in the form of our “memories.”

“Many of us have the faulty and limiting belief that to heal our traumas we must dredge up horrible memories from our past. What we know for certain is that we feel damaged, fragmented, distressed, shameful, unhappy, etc. In an attempt to feel better we search for the cause(s) of our unhappiness, hoping that finding them will ease our distress….Even if we are able to dredge up reasonably accurate ‘memories’ of an event, they will not heal us. On the contrary, this unnecessary exercise can cause us to re-enact the experience and get sucked into the trauma vortex once again….further solidifying our frozen immobility.” (Levine p. 206)

Levine stresses repeatedly that traumatic events do not need to be re-enacted or even remembered with literal accuracy for healing or resolution to take place. In fact, most of what we think we “remember” is just a present recollection of selective impressions and images from the event, which may be completely inaccurate, skewed by our limiting beliefs. To the trauma sufferer, who always sees danger where there is none, this likely makes the sufferer see the past differently, thus compounding the problem:

“In response, the nervous system goes into survival mode and the organism has to make an instantaneous decision….It compares the present to the past, looking for a response that might help resolve the current dilemma….the nervous system unceasingly and unsuccessfully searches for appropriate responses. As it fails to find this critical information, the emotions of rage, terror, and helplessness escalate….Since the images it finds are associated with traumatic emotions, the images themselves may evoke further activation without supplying the appropriate response to complete the process.” (Levine p. 211-212)

The trauma sufferer is likely to view the past in an abnormally negative light, just as they view the present, and create the future, consistently with whatever “froze” them long ago: “any emotional activation coupled with an image creates an experience of memory. When a person, in desperation, selects images associated with a similar emotional tone even though they may be dissimilar in content, a ‘memory’ is created. This memory is often accepted as the absolute truth of what happened…..Consequently, only fragments of a remembered traumatic event are likely to be entirely accurate.” (Levine p. 213-214)

This is how “false memories” can occur. The felt sense in the body is trying to communicate to the conscious mind, “this is how I feel.” The conscious mind latches onto trying to find a cause, even though the literal history of what happened is not that important. Levine stresses that even if we have a factually accurate memory of what happened that upset us, focusing on the accuracy of it will lead us deeper into trauma, by restricting us to doing the same dysfunctional thing in response. (Once again, what Lynn Grabhorn described as the vibration seeking its match.)

In earlier posts in this thread, I have gone into plenty of detail on how these negative effects of trauma manifest in the bodymind as emotional dysregulation, “addiction to negativity,” and abnormalities in the hypothalamus, amygdala, and other parts or processes of the brain, as well as syndromes such as chronic fatigue. Most of these earlier posts address the potential of PATHS to offer relief from the troubling memories, emotional and behavioral re-training, new positive beliefs, and compensation for these four types of dysfunction. What I have not previously focused on addressing the problem from the angle of un-freezing the stuck energy in the first place.

Levine says the key to healing old trauma is to get back into the body, through what is termed the “felt sense.” Many trauma sufferers have physical symptoms that defy simple treatment or categorization, such as neck pain, PMS, or chronic fatigue, and many suffer from dissociation or numbness in the body. The “felt sense” is similar to what is meant by being “grounded and centered.” After one gets in touch with the “felt sense” again, and feels themselves un-freezing and leaping into effective action, the body will tremble and discharge the energy.

Levine has developed a therapeutic method along the lines above, which from my reading, appears to be based on hypnosis and guided imagery, with a bit of shamanism thrown in. These therapies are usually correct in what they seek to accomplish and their understanding of the problem, but are like trying to clean an entire locker room with a toothbrush--it is going to take a while. PATHS is faster and better.

What does this mean for a PTSD module? Instructions should address the following areas, as well as many more that I’m sure the programmers can distill from all the research:

• Instruct the nervous system to discharge frozen energies in the body and nervous system, without dredging up the original traumatizing memory
• Instruct “renegotiation,” which is “conscious awareness accessed through the felt sense” leading to a “gentle energetic discharge just as effective as that which the animal accesses through action.” (Levine p. 187)
• Instruct the body and mind to maintain better “nervous hygiene,” by keeping new experiences from causing energies to freeze in the body, once old traumas are cleared out
• Instruct a person to stay tuned-in to their body and its sensations (not dissociated or constricted)
• Instruct new positive emotions and positive beliefs, and take the sting out of painful memories and images, in order to allow the person to have relief and behave differently, while the underlying cause is healing, and prepare the person to have a normal life once all the frozen energy is gone
• Instructions to free the body of the negative trauma vibration, so that the person is able to have new choices in life, free from “compulsive re-enactment”
• Instructions to re-organize the memories and see them in a new positive light, with the understanding that the value of memories is less about keeping a recorded history of one’s life, and more about setting the emotional tone for the present and future.

I hope this is helpful information!

I am beginning the 2nd year of 3 of Peter's work: Somatic Experiencing and have been receiving the work almost every week for about 1 1/2 months. There is no hypnotherapy but a continuous pendulation between the trauma vortex and the felt sense. This allows the nervous system more space to hold the present and the past. What has been important to me is letting me go into the trauma vortex and coming back out so I'm not sure that getting rid of the trauma vortex is the answer but rather going to the edge of it so the nervous system can learn how to regulate.

One thing my therapist said is when there is sexual abuse healing is more effective in relationship, one on one. My suggestion is to use Paths as an adjunct or a partner and also have someone to talk to, ideally an SE therapist. There are 2 kinds of SE therapists: the bodyworker and the psychologist. The difference is the bodyworker can hold your hand or put a hand on your knee. For other PTSD that is not relational it may not matter so much.

I have watched Peter work with people and it is phenomenal! He is a keen observer, looking for all the ques to understand what state the client is in and then leads them either toward the trauma vortex or toward the felt sense. He uses touch when appropriate and intuition.

When I work with clients (in the water) I can track where they are by body language and can follow them with my own felt sense. This is a reality check for me about how we are all connected.

Here are some notes about SE:

1. Very important to work with the felt sense and orienting. This is the basis of the work which allows people to come back to the present and ground when faced with a rise in the sympathetic nervous system. Orienting is allowing the eyes to look at what they want, to get a sense of the present and where you are.

2. Pendulation: allowing a rise in the sympathetic NS toward the trauma vortex and swinging back to parasympathetic NS and the felt sense.

3. Somatic responses:
a. trembling and shaking allows the discharge of energy. Tingling that feels good is a discharge.
b. Freeze: unresolved movement such as running away or shielding or pushing away with hands and arms: ie. feet begin to tap, hands flutter
These movements need to be slowed down so the nervous system can experience them and finish the movement successfully. Dissociation: a type of freeze, a feeling of floating or checking out, spacing out, numbness
c. sleepiness, yawning shows a return to parasympathetic NS

4. Dorsal-Vagal response.... I have to read more about this.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I can get my notes and continue this later. There is alot that isn't on the web.

I hope this is intelligible since I am over my sleep time

Inika,

Thank you so much for weighing in on the Somatic Experiencing process. it sounds like it "gets" an important piece that many guided processing therapies do not.

I've been through modalities that were not effective, I think because it put too much weight on re-telling the painful events, the value of which I was not entirely clear at the time. I have experienced and witnessed what happens when the stuck energies start to act like they want to move (trembling, shaking) but then the process switches to an airing of grievances or emotional meltdown, and the momentum of the energy turns hard in the other direction and carries them right back deeper into the vortex. It can be like a leaf blower, stirring everything up just to let it settle somewhere else. There is cathartic relief in re-telling one's story again, but that relief is temporary in such settings.

I've seen many people become addicted to the distress-relief cycle provided by some therapies, or become attached to the unconditional acceptance in the form of the therapist, without improving their real emotional landscape one iota. Of course, different things are going to work with different people.

I would think that any sort of relational trauma (abuse or neglect) would be way more complex to fix with SE than phobias, war, natural disaster, or freak accidents...?

One thing I've been working on in my platinum is reconnecting with my essence, inner being, true self, the deeper part that goes by many names.

I haven't discussed this here a whole lot, but I found something in Waking the Tiger that explains the connection between a "lost" essence and the experience of trauma. This was something I missed in my first reading:

"When we suffer from trauma, the association between the life energy and the negative emotions is so close that we cannot distinguish between them. Discharge is precisely what we need, but when it begins to happen, the effect can be terrifying and intolerable, in part because the energy released is perceived to be negative. Because of this fear, we typically suppress the energy or at best discharge it incompletely." (Levine p. 152)

To expand on this...if one perceives their essence and the frozen energy to be one and the same, it is understandable that they would fear the deepest part of themselves, and at the same time be reluctant to release the energy, for fear that there will be nothing left if the trauma is gone....