Roots

Women's Healing Through Therapeutic Touch

Mindfulness

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Kindred Spirits: Learning From The Medicine Women

Dhyani Ywahoo, Priestcraft Holder of the Ani Gadoah Clan, Tsalagi (Cherokee) Nation
Annie Kahn, The Flower That Speaks in a Pollen Way, Navajo Medicine Woman of the Water Clan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I find a kernel of wisdom in just about everything I read, but every once in a while I stumble upon some piece of writing that makes my entire being light up.  I recently read “Medicine Women, Curanderas, and Women Doctors”*, looking to get some insights into the curandera way of seeing the world.  I wasn’t looking to publish anything on my website or to declare anything about myself; I was really just looking for resonance with other women who find themselves in a healing capacity and maybe shed some light on another facet of my identity for myself.  The book itself is good, but there were many parts that didn’t speak to me personally.  As a Latina, I picked it up thinking I would vibe most with the stories of the curanderas, as I have good personal experience with this type of healing from my years spent in Venezuela.  Instead, it was the eloquent and vibrant description of the Native American vision of illness and healing that made my heart sing.  I am Panamanian; I am not Native American.  I do not wish to appropriate the Cherokee, Navajo or Apache ideology or be disrespectful in any way.  I just want to share the wise words of the two women in the photos above in case they might resonate with you as much as they did with me.  I think most of us have read books about the Native American way of thinking (and I know there are more famous ones out there), but sometimes we need to remember how powerful this mindset is.  I use remember to mean “re-member”, as in piecing together parts of ourselves that have perhaps been cut off or long ago lost (“dis-membered”).

Dhyani Ywahoo said to the authors of the book: “May this book you are writing bring many women again to the certainty of their gifts, and may the men who read it realize the mother within, and may we all realize ourselves in the circle of light.”  In my very small way, I want to keep this going.  (Ywahoo was understandably adamant in the book that her own words be used, so I use direct quotes whenever referring to her.)

The theme that emerged from all three Native American medicine women is that disease is about being off balance, in disharmony.  It is not just about biochemistry or about being out of equilibrium in our own bodies, as in the Western medical thought, but on a larger scale.  For Ywahoo, “the concept of illness is anchored in the idea of discord:  discord in human consciousness, discord in our vibratory frequencies.”  To them, consciousness-raising is the first step in healing, and the connection with the earth, sky, plants, the universe is a vital part to this.  Annie Kahn explained that prior to her client’s arrival, she engages her connection to earth and sky, setting the intention for the client and preparing the space and the energy to flow.  She is basically a conduit to reconnect the person to their own connection to Spirit.  In her words, “Two people coming together make medicine.”  This applies not only to massage therapy and healing practices, but to anyone, regardless of the nature of our contribution to the world.

“The relationship of human consciousness is always very real to the native people.  No, it is not a metaphor. … You have a relationship with the spirit of every tree, and with the spirit of the sea, and with every creature that walks, crawls, swims, flies, walks on two legs, four legs, a hundred legs.  Each one of us has a relationship.  Somehow being out of phase with that cycle of relationships, either with ourselves, our family, is going to have an effect on the individual’s health and, ultimately, on the whole planet. … Acknowledging the sacred flow within is a key to evolving consciousness,” explains Ywahoo.  Maybe most of us already know this, but I think at this point we could all stand to live it a little more.  Many people these days practice mindfulness and gratitude, but there appears to be a nuance in this culture in that it only relates to Self, always trying to heal Self as a singular contained being.  I can easily slip back into this way of thinking myself.  From what I see, the generalized concept of wholeness needs not be only of Self as whole, but also of Self as inextricably connected to a larger sense of a Whole.  One layer of the medicine, then, is our connection:  connection to plants, animals, music, each other, Spirit.

For Ywahoo, “medicine is … a holy power that makes things well, one who can bring someone again to their remembrance of their true nature.  The gift of the female healer is to comfort, to nurture the person, so that they can recognize the whole being within.  To help someone heal is to allow them to recognize their holiness: through resonating, a song, so that one can feel themselves coming again to the right note of their true expression.”  One of her many gifts is song, and these holy songs are a part of various indigenous and shamanic healing practices.  Resonance is key.  Sound healing is a powerful way to access resonance (I find biofield tuning with tuning forks to be profound), but I think this can be expanded to include other gifts.  Everyone reading this has a gift to share;  mine is touch.  Through allowing me to share this, each client brings both of us closer to our connection to our higher selves.  Therein lies one layer of the medicine.

Again, Ywahoo:  “the ‘why’ to become a medicine person is to realize that one has the gift to share and has an inherently great capacity for carrying energy and that energy may be positive for the benefit of the people, one chooses to walk the medicine way. And it chooses you.”

This is not to say that anatomy and technique are unimportant.  I will still blog about muscles, the nervous system and tips for more comfortable alignment.  I am continually studying and learning.  The body consists of multiple complex systems, and as massage therapists we have a responsibility to understand them as much as possible.  However, as much as I rely on this knowledge and on evidence-based studies and pain science, I have never claimed that these explain everything. You are all probably tired of hearing me say that regardless of all of our “scientific advancements”, the body is still not well understood.  There is a part of illness and healing that remains a bit of a mystery, and in trying to formulate an explanation, that explanation can sound quite mystical.  I am ready to admit that I am OK with that.

I will leave you with a final quote from Ywahoo (PS – this book was written in 1989):  “it is only now that some people are being stirred, and also through the recognition that the prevailing mindset of industrial man is only going to lead to death of the planet and everyone, that has brought people again to consider and look with curiosity (and some respect) to the native practice.”

 

*”Medicine Women, Curanderas, and Women Doctors,” Bobette Perrone, H. Henrietta Stockel, Victoria Krueger

 

 

 

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Simple Ways to Soothe Yourself During a Moment of Anxiety

In this historical and cultural moment, sadly, anxiety has become a part of our everyday lives.  Many of us experience nervous system “red alert” more often than we would like.  I know I do, and I consistently see it in my clients. I am intellectually aware of the ways in which our bodies and minds try to protect us from threats.  I also have a decent understanding of the ways in which these protection mechanisms often go haywire and end up creating or at least perpetuating a sense of threat instead.  (Read here and here for two blog posts I wrote about trauma and the mind-body connection.)  However, rational thought doesn’t help us when we get into a spiral of worry, panic and fear.  For me, it can easily feel like my body and mind are betraying me, since I know I am not in danger and yet I FEEL like the world is caving in on me.  I have been working on reframing this, so that my body is instead my best friend, a safe haven, the only little sanctuary that truly belongs to me on this earth.  The idea is to calm the physiological signals using the body, so I can get myself out of sympathetic nervous system activation and realize that I am safe.

It is worth mentioning that anxiety is complex and multi-factorial.  There are many systems in the body that could be experiencing a disturbance or pathology: musculoskeletal, neurological, biochemical, electrical, energetic and others.  However, in my experience I have found the following to be true for many people:  anxiety disturbs our mind-body connection, scrambling our interpretations as to what is actually happening at the moment.  Mindfulness and body awareness, in my experience, are some of the natural enemies of anxiety.  The more we can connect to our bodies and truly pay attention to what we are feeling, the more we can understand our bodily processes and even use them in our favor.  Using our bodies to self-soothe is obviously not a new idea – as children we did this all of the time.  In many photos of me as a little girl, I am staring distrustingly into the camera, either twirling my hair or sucking my thumb.  As an adult, however, I clearly needed smarter tactics!  Somatic therapy, yoga and massage help, but what about tools to help in a pinch during a stressful moment?  Here are a few that work for me – I hope you find one or two that are helpful.

 

BREATHING TECHNIQUES

Breathing is a fundamental part of any discussion about anxiety.  It’s a cliche for a reason!  The breath is the life force.  At the onset of stress, we might find ourselves momentarily freezing in place, interrupting breathing altogether.  As the heart rate quickens, the breath returns but at a faster pace in the form of shallow breathing.  As we continue to respond to stress, our muscles tighten, including the thoracic diaphragm and other muscles responsible for inspiration and exhalation.  Our stomach muscles often tense up in order to protect our organs, making a full inhale and exhale even more difficult.  Most of us, unless we have specifically done some type of breathing practice, do not take full breaths as we brace ourselves against discomfort.  This, of course, leads to more panic and anxiety.  So the first and best line of defense against anxiety is full, deep breathing.

In order to take a full breath, we must fill our lungs to the sides and down into the thoracic diaphragm as well as the upper part of our chest.  I find it helpful to put my hands around myself in a sort of “self hug”, but down around my ribs.  You can simply put your hands on your ribcage on the same side of your body, too;  I just like the “swaddled” feeling I get with my arms wrapped around my middle.  (It looks less conspicuous if you are in public, too.)  Once your hands are on the ribcage, apply the slightest pressure and slowly breathe out into your hands as much as you can and then fully exhale.  Take a few seconds each for the inhale and exhale and really pay attention to how you feel.  Imagine the stress leaving your body with each exhale. Visualization is another great tool to aid in breathing.  I learned these visualization techniques from Carole Osborne, one of the most respected educators in the field of perinatal massage:

Imagine your torso as a folded umbrella with the edge of the umbrella at your lower ribcage. As you inhale, see the umbrella opening. Exhaling, imagine it closed against the center pole. Continue to open and close the umbrella in your imagination as you breathe for another several minutes.

Once you are able to fill up the lungs out to the sides, place your hands on your belly OR one hand on the belly and one hand on the chest.  Again slowly breathe into your hands so they are rising and then allow a full exhale.  For those of us who grew up on Jane Fonda … this is not the time to be sucking in your stomach.  Allow your belly to look big and round!

The visualization (again, from Carole Osborne):

Imagine that your torso is a beach and that your hands are driftwood on that beach rising and falling with the water’s peaceful movements. With your inhale, watch in your mind’s eye as your “driftwood hands” rise with a gentle wave touching the shore. Let your abdomen swell more extensively than your chest. Feel your hands sink on your torso when you exhale, as you imagine the wave retreating.  Continue to watch the rising and falling of the driftwood on the gently surging and retreating water as you continue to breathe fully for several minutes.

Full, slow breathing practices are generally great for me and easy to do in public, but there are many different types of breath exercises out there.  Andy Caponigro’s book “The Miracle of the Breath: Mastering Fear, Healing Illness, and Experiencing the Divine” is full of good suggestions, including a “Tarzan” breath, a rapid breath of fire and some grounding exercises.

FINGERHOLD PRACTICE FOR MANAGING EMOTIONS AND STRESS*

I learned this from a wonderful woman who works for the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health.  She gave me this handout (printable version here), and I would like to share the fingerhold practice in case it is helpful for some of you.  I find it calms me, combined with breathing.

Practicing fingerholds can help to manage emotions and stress. Hold each finger, in turn, with the other hand, holding for as long as it feels comfortable. Hold gently, but firmly. As you hold your finger, breathe in a way that feels comfortable. Many adults feel relief after 2-5 minutes per finger, and children often need to hold their fingers for much less time (30 sec. – 1 min.) for it to feel useful. You can work with either hand, and you can also work with just one or two fingers if that feels most helpful (or you don’t have a lot of time).

 

Key:

Thumb – tears, grief, emotional pain, feeling upset

Pointer/Index finger – fear, panic, feeling scared

Middle finger – anger, rage, resentment, feeling mad

Ring finger – worry, anxiety

Little finger – having self-doubts, not feeling good about ourselves or feeling bad

* This handout was adapted from Capacitar’s Emergency Tool Kit by Jen Curley, National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health.

 

USING YOUR SENSES

Aromatherapy and music therapy are two quick and easy ways to ameliorate anxiety.  Both affect the brain.  Our olfactory system directly affects the limbic system (“the emotional brain”), which affects those parts of the brain that control heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, memory, stress levels, and hormone balance.  There is a reason why you inhale bergamot oil and instantly feel happy!  I have used essential oils to make inhalers for friends that they can carry around with them.  The inhaler essentially looks like a lipstick;  inside is a cotton wick that holds the essential oils.  They are inexpensive and the wick can be swapped out to use a different recipe.  The recipes can be modified to be safe for children, as well.  A very basic recipe using oils that many people already have is: 5 drops each of bergamot, lavender and frankincense.  Here and here are two other great blends from Aromatics International, and here is a video of Aromatherapist Andrea Butje making her Anxiety Away Blend.

 

Another trick is to sneak headphones on and play music that you find calming.  Every once in a while I wake up at 2:30am worrying about something and I can’t go back to sleep.  When this happens, I put on music:  whale sounds, nature sounds, singing bowls or soothing music.  Even if I can’t fall back to sleep, at least I am awake and calm as opposed to awake and freaking out.  Music has been used as therapy for ages.  Research shows that listening to music stimulates more areas of the brain than any other human function.  Among many other things, music lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol, so it has a powerful effect on stress.   According to a large scale McGill University review, listening to music prior to surgery was more effective in reducing patients’ anxiety than prescription medication.  Music therapy is currently being successfully used to alleviate anxiety in patients with dementia, cancer, chronic pain and depression.

 

VAGUS NERVE STIMULATION

The vagus nerve plays an important part in the parasympathetic nervous system, or the “rest and digest” system.  It runs from the brainstem through the neck to the heart, lungs and other internal organs – it’s amazing how many body systems this nerve is involved with (it’s name derives from the Latin word for “wandering”, if that tells you anything). It keeps the body in balance through neurendocrine-immune axis activity and the regulation of metabolic homeostasis.  This nerve mediates sensory information to the brain and has direct and indirect connections to the neural circuit which pertains to emotional and cognitive functions.  People with low vagal tone often suffer from depression and/or anxiety (among other things), since the ability to get into “rest and digest” is compromised.  Research has been mixed, but the concensus seems to be that stimulating the vagus nerve may offer benefits, including stress reduction.

Vibration in the throat is the easiest way to stimulate this nerve.  All of the below would do the trick, plus most are fun:

  • gargling
  • chanting
  • singing
  • laughing

You all know I love doing the “horselips” and it’s even better if I combine it with a low guttural noise before or after.  Laughter, in this case, truly can be the best medicine.  I keep a few “bloopers” style seconds-long videos on my phone for moments of panic.  These videos make me belly laugh every single time and the anxiety magically lifts.

The vagus nerve responds to cold exposure, so to possibly alleviate anxiety in a pinch, you could splash cold water on your face.  I haven’t tried this one specifically for anxiety, but I do enjoy a cold shower post-run and have noticed uplifting effects on my mood (which could have been the run, too).

 

MUSCLE DECOMPRESSION FOR TENSION RELEASE

JAW

Those of us who hold tension in our jaws will find relaxing the mouth and jaw works wonders in combatting worry and anxiety.  My first step is normally to flap my lips in “raspberries” or “horse lips” fashion.  I look ridiculous but I can’t believe how much doing this calms me down.  I then place my hands on the sides of my cheeks, apply pressure and slowly drag down, allowing my mouth to open if necessary as my hands glide down my face.  I know most people are accustomed to pulling the cheek skin up rather than down for vanity purposes, but the point is to traction the masseter muscle away from its origin.  In other words, we want to apply pressure in the opposite direction of normal contraction.

SHOULDERS

It can be helpful to exaggerate a tensed posture first in order to get a better release of tension.  With the shoulders, you can tense up and shrug your shoulders for three seconds and then drop the shoulders dramatically as you exhale, sighing audibly if that feels good.  This one does not work for me, personally, but I have friends and clients who swear by this method of tension release.  I have modified the idea in a way that works better for me:  I tense my shoulders back rather than up, squeezing the rhomboids for 3 seconds, which also allows the chest to open up, and then I drop the shoulders into relaxation.

CHEST

Tightness in the chest is a common complaint accompanying feelings of anxiety.  The breathing techniques above are all great for decreasing this tightness.  In addition to breathing, however, I like to externally manipulate the chest (which helps to facilitate the breathing).  One way to do this is to stretch the pectoralis muscles in something like a doorway stretch (blog on that here).  However, when I am feeling anxious, I find that feeling contained feels better, again like swaddling.  Anxiety is individual, so you can experiment and see what feels best for you.  I like to put one or both hands over my sternum.  I can feel my heart and lungs, which makes me feel very safe.  This also connects me to my heart center, reminding me of my gratitude practice.  I then put the slightest pressure on my sternum, just enough to get good traction on the skin, and I move the skin around in slow big circles, or sometimes just move the skin laterally and hold for a few moments and then do the other side.

I will admit that I do not fully understand the mechanism through which this might work, but it does (for me).  As skin stretch is the major modality used in dermoneuromodulation, I suspect the answer may be found here.  A very simplified version of this theory is that by engaging mechanoreceptors in the skin through skin stretch, we are giving the nervous system input that helps it downregulate nociception.  By providing the cutaneous nerves with novel stimuli, we are affecting the nervous system in a broader sense.  I have only begun to scratch the surface of Diane Jacobs pivotal work, so forgive the crude explanation.  All I can say with certainty is that a slow gentle skin stretch on the sternum greatly reduces a sense of panic in me personally, and I use it often.  You can try it and decide for yourself if it helps.

 

GROUNDING YOURSELF

Making ourselves feel “safe” appears to be a big factor in alleviating anxiety.  One way to do this is to feel that we are on solid ground, bringing us back to “earth”.  Connecting with the natural earth, if it’s available to you, is best, but even feeling the floor in your office beneath you can be reassuring.  A few suggestions for feeling grounded:

  • walk on grass, barefoot if possible (watching out for dog poop, glass, etc)
  • stomp your feet on the ground to feel how solid it is beneath you, knowing you are supported
  • put your back up against a wall, again so you feel supported, with something to “lean” on

 

SUPPLEMENTS

As supplements are outside of my scope of practice, I asked genomics expert and functional medicine practitioner Ryan Frisinger if he had any safe over-the-counter supplements to combat anxiety.  He gave me a GABA spray (that included things like L-Theanine, L-Carnosine, and pterostiblene) that worked great for me, taken before bed to wind down or anytime I felt stressed, but he cautioned me that it was not for everyone.  The spray worked with my particular genetics, but could be harmful to someone else.  He suggested Hyland’s Biochemic Phosphates, which are specifically formulated for anxiety and nervous system exhaustion and generally safe for everyone.

However, he was clear that anxiety is complicated and deserves a more thorough examination.  Here is what he said:

A lot of anxiety is driven by foods that are excessive in tyrosine, tryptophan, sulphur and methione.  All of those have the potential to activate the fight or flight response and imbalance neurotransmitters.  The first step is to eat an anti-inflammatory diet: no grains, dairy or sugar.  Additionally, many things in our modern medicine toolkit cause antibodies to the GAD enzymes, which make it hard for the body to change glutamate into GABA to help move the brain from a state of excitation to inhibition.  We must also look at broad scale nutrient deficiencies (B-vitamins, magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, lithium orotate, vitamin C), because the biochemistry of the brain is downstream and if there is an insufficient supply of nutrients, we have uneven production of neurotransmitters.  There are lots of supplements on the market that propose cures for anxiety like nervines (passionflower or Kava), or GABA sprays and capsules (Kavinace). Most of those are too generalized to treat anxiety effectively as the problem is always multifactorial in nature.  It is also important to draw a distinction between anxiety and depression.  Monitoring sleep quality is crucial because that will undermine the neurotransmitter system’s function and the circadian biology of the cells and organs.  Finally, we need to be mindful not to overstep energetic boundaries, as some of this anxiety is caused by lifestyle choices that lead to chronic exhaustion of the nervous system.

I couldn’t agree more:  diet, sleep and lifestyle are the areas to target when thinking about optimum functioning, which includes nervous system and emotional states.  Until we have these dialed in, however, we need little tools to get us through stressful times.  When I pressed him for a short-term suggestion to combat acute stress, he emphasized the importance of reengaging the brain to stop the spiral of anxiety.  (That will be the subject of another post in the near future.)  He agreed with all of my suggestions above, with the walk in nature being his top go-to, but added that 10 minutes of Tetris is HIS quick way to halt anxiety/panic attacks in their tracks.  (If you are intrigued and want to hear more about Ryan’s work, I have listed some podcasts in the resources below).

These are just a few of the tricks I have learned along my journey of self-knowing.  When I start to go down the spiral of worry, fear and panic, I try to be as compassionate with myself as humanly possible.  None of these tricks works for me EVERY time, except for maybe the breathing techniques, but the more I develop body awareness, the more I find I can handle my stress with equanimity.

 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Study

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Article

 

Ryan Frisinger Podcasts:

Open Source Medicine

Robb Wolf

Beyond Your Wildest Genes

Tangentially Speaking

The Bledsoe Show

The Lost Files

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Let Go or Be Dragged

I saw this saying on a refrigerator magnet two months ago, and I loved it.  In hindsight, this was clearly a message from the universe that I had a little work to do surrounding the idea of attachment.  There was a time in my life when I was working a little harder on trying to conquer my tendency to cling to the present as if it could last forever.  I was reading a lot about Shambhala and Tibetan Buddhism back then – admittedly cliche, but I found it genuinely helpful.  One of the main concepts is attachment and the pain it causes when we refuse to just let go and stay in the present moment without judgement. By attachment, I am not talking about emotional attachment to a person or being (although I suffer from that and it’s often related).  I am referring to the spiritual attachment to an idea, like that of permanence.  I experienced a lot of growth at that time and moved on to other life lessons. However, the older I get the more I notice that life’s progress is not linear, and there are certain lessons that I need to learn and relearn in new contexts continually.  This is one.  I think of it as tacking toward my goal.  This month I have had multiple opportunities to relearn this lesson of “letting go”, and I thought I would share in case anyone finds the reminder helpful in their own lives.

Those of you who have been to my space know that I have a serious fondness for plants, and I have a ton of hanging baskets on my patio.  Sometime in March, I noticed that two sparrows had built a nest in my favorite one, a luxuriously full angel wing begonia.  Although I have always been a little afraid of birds, my anxiety surrounding this nest and the fate of my beloved plant was accompanied by curiosity and a sense of necessary surrender.  The nest was expertly constructed, and even though it had been dug down into the soil, I realized that I could still carefully water the plant from the sides without causing an epic deluge inside the nest.  (Can you see the little beak in the bottom left corner of the nest?!)

After a few weeks, I spotted a few eggs.  I grew accustomed to my little friends singing in the morning as I watered the plants outside.  Just a few days ago I began to hear different little chirps – the babies had hatched!  The adult birds went back and forth endlessly, flying away and quickly bringing back insects for their waiting babies.  One afternoon, I heard lots of commotion on the patio.  I approached the screen door and stumbled upon the most delightful chaos:  the babies were learning to fly for the first time, hopping from plant to plant, tumbling from the railing and catching themselves in a fluff of feathers as the parents flitted about supervising.  I tried to get some videos but they simply didn’t do the scene justice. It was magical.  The very next morning I awoke to an eery quiet, and I realized the birds were gone.  I wasn’t ready!  The patio felt so empty.  I will admit that I sulked for a good portion of the morning (although I was excited to be able to water my plant fully for the first time in over a month).  Eventually, however, I realized that I was stubbornly clinging to the illusion of permanence and indulging in my old trigger of abandonment.  I had gotten very comfortable with these birds, but the truth is the cycle of their lives was not about me!  They had given me a huge gift by allowing me the privilege of bearing witness to this moment in nature.  Plant, animal and human lived in harmony for a moment until that moment was over.  It didn’t need to be happy or sad.  I saw that the only truth here was gratitude.

During the same week, two of my long-time regular clients told me that they were moving to different states.  While I was happy for each of them, of course I felt the old hook of resistance.  I had gotten very comfortable with the regularity of the schedule with both of them, and I had also grown to enjoy the very genuine energetic connection I had with them during our sessions.  I felt a few tears surfacing after my final massage with both women.  For those of you who are horrified at my lack of boundaries, believe me:  I am aware of what the textbooks say about them.  However, when a woman comes into my massage space, she is also in my home.  When I do an outcall, I am in her home – so on some level there is already something more personal at play.  I tend to attract the clients who want this type of situation.  In addition to the physical and biomechanical work we do together, there is an inevitable exchange of energy which is often unspoken but exists.  The trick is to allow it in during the massage time without expecting anything else beyond, but even so there is always a connection that develops after multiple sessions together.  My point is: I felt sad!  And …here I had yet another “growth opportunity”.  The reframe was:  gratitude at having been given these wonderful women in my life for such a long time.  I learned a lot from each of them.  I also felt confidence in that I had given them the tools, through body awareness and endless little tips, to befriend and care for their bodies on their own, with or without me.  Finally, I saw the newly empty massage slots on my calendar as an open door for other women to come find me who might need my services!

Thank you for indulging me.  I am aware that my personal challenges and philosophy about life are outside the scope of “massage therapy”, but I thought if just one person reading this is struggling with “letting go”, then it is worth the post!  Plus, the spiritual illness that comes from “holding on” affects our bodies, on multiple levels.  For those of you looking for “muscles and stuff”, I have you covered – this week I also posted a blog about the muscles of “letting go”, the sphincters.

 

 

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Befriending The Body

 

My last post focused on the physiological feedback loops occurring in the body as a result of traumatic situations, as explained in Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.’s “The Body Keeps the Score.”  Essentially, he shows that the world is experienced through a different nervous system after a traumatic event (and this can be any event with lasting consequences; I would bet that every one of us has experienced at least one traumatic event in our lifetime).  We are often triggered into sympathetic nervous system activity, or “fight or flight”, by seemingly benign situations, unable to put what is happening into a historical context of past versus present.  Trauma sufferers never quite feel safe in the body, as the brain’s “alarm system” is always signaling danger through chronic stress hormone activity.  Van Der Kolk puts it best: “Trauma is much more than a story about something that happened long ago.  The emotions and physical sensations that were imprinted during the trauma are experienced not as memories but as disruptive physical reactions in the present.”   If every time we experience an emotional trigger, we get upset, our hearts race, our breathing becomes shallow and we can’t articulate our fears, it makes it very difficult to make good choices and behave in our own best interests.  The question then becomes: how can we pull ourselves out of this disruptive state and realize that we are safe in the present moment?

Over the last thirty years, psychiatry has relied more and more on medication to regulate the post-trauma brain’s activity.  Medication can greatly improve our quality of life, but the problem is that we have to keep taking it.  The symptoms reappear when we stop taking the medication; it does not actually solve the problem.  Talk therapy is another option. This treatment encourages us to name what happened to us, to trust another person enough to be vulnerable in front of them and to have our experiences and feelings recognized, all of which can be very powerful.  However, talk therapy alone won’t solve the problem, either, because, after trauma, the rational brain is always hijacked by the nervous system.  Nervous system activation ultimately trumps intellectual insight.  In order to fully heal from trauma, we need to incorporate our bodies, too.  We can befriend our bodies again and use them as a way into the nervous system.  We can accomplish this through mindful awareness of our subtle body sensations.  When we see that we can make little shifts to these sensations, we can remap our brains to better respond to the present moment.  Therapies such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Neurofeedback, Somatic Experiencing and TRE (Tension & Trauma Release Exercises) have consistently produced profound healing with lasting results.  My “personal” opinion is that these types of therapies are the best at resolving trauma (see below for resources).  Yoga is another excellent way to recalibrate the nervous system, as it encourages the development of interoception and the ability to approach the body with curiosity and acceptance rather than fear.  Studies have shown a permanent decrease of PTSD symptoms after only 10 yoga sessions.  I have an irrational and inexplicable resistance to doing yoga myself, but I DO recommend it to my clients, as it truly has so many benefits.  Ok, so now for my “professional” opinion: let’s talk about massage!

Massage alone will rarely heal trauma, but massage is a wonderful adjunctive therapy for it.  One of the most natural ways humans can calm distress is through touch.  There are definitely people who enjoy touch less than others, but a significant majority of us find comfort in a rhythmic back rub or in being gently rocked.  Skilled touch can affect us on an even deeper level.  A stressed person is on constant sensory overload, and one of the most well-documented benefits of massage is its calming effect on the nervous system.  Massage puts us into parasympathetic nervous system activity, or “rest and digest”.  Brainwave studies using electroencephalograph (EEG) technology show that massage decreases beta activity in the brain (the highest frequency and the most alert state) and increases theta and alpha activity (associated with states of peace and calm).  Another benefit of massage is that through nurturing touch, we establish a connection with another person, ameliorating the isolation that can accompany trauma.  A massage therapist can impart empathy and a sense of safety through touch, safety being one of the fundamental requirements of trauma healing.  As clients, we are in control, and we determine the boundaries of where, how and in which way we are touched.  Further, as we allow ourselves to receive touch, we bring awareness to the parts of the body being massaged.  In so doing, we are grounding ourselves in our bodies as well as in the present moment, another fundamental tenet of trauma healing.  An added benefit of this increase in body awareness is that it invites us to notice where we are holding tension and release it.  When emotions are bound up inside of us, the body is tense.  As we relax, it becomes more difficult to hold on to negative emotions.  In this way, too, we are recalibrating our nervous system.

Finally, to return to the two pathways for perceptive input from my prior post, massage addresses both options for trauma recovery.  According to Van Der Kolk, treatment can be based on recalibrating the nervous system or strengthening our mindfulness surrounding body awareness.  Massage can provide a powerful support to primary therapies utilizing either treatment protocol, as I have illustrated above.  Even if we are not in trauma therapy, many of us have emotional triggers from a past experience and the basics of trauma healing can apply to us:  reestablishing ownership of body and mind, having experiences that restore a sense of physical safety and calming physical tensions in the body.  These are all benefits of massage therapy!

 

RESOURCES:

EMDR:  Leslie Larson, LPC  leslielarsontherapist.com

Somatic Experiencing:  Miranda Jane, mirandajanecounseling.com