[ image credit | 56 ]

…All at once new, trembling, how he was caught up
and entangled in the spreading tendrils of inner event
already twined into patterns, into strangling undergrowth, prowling
bestial shapes. How he submitted-. Loved.
Loved his interior world, his interior wilderness,
that primal forest inside him, where among decayed treetrunks
his heart stood, light-green. Loved. Left it, went through
his own roots and out, into the powerful source
where his little birth had already been outlived…

Rainer Maria Rilke
Duino Elegies – The Third Elegy

[ image source | Untitled ]

Spring semester has ended and I have a couple of weeks off before summer term starts. I’ve been resting and catching up with myself, after the mad dash of finals and end-of-semester projects.

I learned so much this semester:

• That I can, in fact, handle a full-time load at school again
• All about mixing colors and how they interact with each other in a fabulous color theory class
• The beginnings of both ballet and piano, in spite of telling myself since childhood that I would never understand or ‘get’ dance or music
• Had a whole new world of Peace & Conflict Studies opened to me, and now I am setting intentions to double major at Berkeley in the future (Cognitive Science and Peace & Conflict Studies)
• All kinds of things about creative and expressive arts therapies and how they are used with different populations

I also began direct processing of traumatic memories using EMDR in therapy, and tapped into the desire to begin the process of becoming a personal trainer at BodyTribe, so that I can share the empowerment I’ve found there. I see such research potential for the kind of training we do there…there is something happening that is extremely relevant to trauma recovery, which I’d like to elucidate.

I am feeling more connected and powerful than ever. A great shift is occurring, and I am eager to share what I discover.

Currently, I’m nesting. I’ve been deep cleaning and finishing home projects that have been half-completed for far, far too long. I hope to post pictures this week!

Wish I had access to this full article. Looks like there’s a library day in my future! I’m excited to begin exploring the public health model.

Having New Eyes: Viewing Child Sexual Abuse as a Public Health Problem

by James A. Mercy   [source]

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~Marcel Proust

Imagine a childhood disease that affects one in five girls and one in seven boys before they reach 18 (Finkelhor & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1994): a disease that can cause dramatic mood swings, erratic behavior, and even severe conduct disorders among those exposed; a disease that breeds distrust of adults and undermines the possibility of experiencing normal sexual relationships; a disease that can have profound implications for an individual’s future health by increasing the risk of problems such as substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and suicidal behavior (Crowell & Burgess, 1996); a disease that replicates itself by causing some of its victims to expose future generations to its debilitating effects.

Imagine what we, as a society, would do if such a disease existed. We would spare no expense. We would invest heavily in basic and applied research. We would devise systems to identify those affected and provide services to treat them. We would develop and broadly implement prevention campaigns to protect our children. Wouldn’t we?

Such a disease does exist–it’s called child sexual abuse. Our response, however, has been far from the full-court press reserved for traditional diseases or health concerns of equal or even lesser magnitude. Perhaps the perception of sexual abuse as a law enforcement problem or our discomfort in confronting sexual issues contributes to our complacency. Whatever the reason, we have severely underestimated the effects of this problem on our children’s health and quality of life.

The subject of Zen practice (aka zazen) for survivors of trauma has been much on my mind of late. I’ve tried several times to write something intelligent about it. But since I’m not a survivor of trauma myself — other than life’s usual traumas that we all have — I sometimes feel it’s not my place to say. I have known people who are both childhood sex abuse survivors and dedicated Zen practitioners. I hope one day one of them will write about this subject. But until then, I’ll take a shot. Much of what I want to say is based on what I’ve observed in them. But whether they involve childhood sexual abuse or not, traumas of all kinds are serious business and probably share much in common.

It’s a fact that zazen brings stuff up. No matter what kind of stuff you have locked away in your mind and body it’s going to come out during sitting. It’s also true that zazen is different from other forms of meditation (if zazen is even a form of meditation) in that it is not directed at any ideal condition. In zazen you allow whatever comes up to just come up as it will, rather than attempting to move the mind toward a specific desired state as most forms of meditation do. This means that trauma survivors may be more likely to face repressed memories and suchlike while doing zazen than while doing other forms of meditation.

I don’t think it’s truly dangerous for trauma survivors to do zazen. But they have to be careful. Of course, anyone should exercise caution while doing the practice. But survivors of trauma need to be possibly even more careful. A practice that’s very much focused on having an “Enlightenment experience” quickly is more likely to bring this stuff to the surface before you’re ready for it. This is yet another reason why crap like Big Mind® is so incredibly heinous and irresponsible. A pox upon them and their putrid ilk!

But here’s what a trauma survivor might expect to encounter in traditional Zen practice. Most of this is also applicable to anyone who practices zazen, trauma survivor or not. There’s not a single person in the world who doesn’t have some stuff they don’t acknowledge buried below the surface.

On the most superficial level zazen will bring up memories. At first these will be familiar memories. Meaning they won’t be particularly surprising, just stuff you haven’t thought of in a long time. For a trauma survivor, this can mean you start recalling things that are painful and that you have avoided thinking about, but which you are basically aware of. The reaction to this runs along the lines of the response you’d have to it even if you weren’t sitting zazen. But sitting tends to intensify emotions. You might start crying or having other similar responses. This can be a bit embarrassing in a crowded zendo. But you should know that you are not alone in having feelings like this.

Read the rest of the article here.

]]> http://cultivatinggrace.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/meditation-for-trauma-survivors/feed/ 0 Amanda http://cultivatinggrace.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/the-well-of-grief/ http://cultivatinggrace.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/the-well-of-grief/#comments Tue, 24 Mar 2009 04:31:12 +0000 Amanda http://cultivatinggrace.wordpress.com/?p=78 ]]>

[ image credit: constellation party|artist's blog|artist's etsy shop ]

The Well of Grief
by David Whyte

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief
turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe
will never know the source
from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown by those who wished for
something else.

If you’re quick, you can nab the free download, up for today only right here.

In other news, midterms are over and I’m sure I’ve aced the all, although I’ll find out for sure next week.

As a project for my Psychology of Peace and Conflict class, I’m designing a research instrument to study society’s perception of child sexual abuse: its prevalence, causes, and effects. I’ll be administering it to just my class for now, which is not a random sample, but it will give me a good starting point.  I have a feeling that this might take me down the path toward my eventual thesis, which is pretty exciting.

[ image credit: where the warm fuzzies are born ]

Sometimes, I feel filled to the brim with gratitude, connection, engagement.

This finally feels like my life.

My ground of being rests in fertile earth. I am basking in the sun and rain…nourished by it all.

Life is beautiful, and I am deeply, deeply grateful.

This goes out to all of the women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are being literally torn apart by rape in war.

This goes out to all of the women in the United States and across the world who are beaten by their husbands and boyfriends.

This goes out to all of the children in the United States and across the world who are targets for sexual abuse within their own families. Studies indicate that more than one in four children are sexually abused, a number that doesn’t change based on country, race, or income.

This goes out to the millions of us who have had to take time out of our lives to heal and deal with the repercussions of sexual assault, rape, and molestation.

And this goes out to those of us who are working for change. Please consider a donation to the Nobel Women’s Initiative, to Generation Five, and to V-Day.

This is Ben Lee paying tribute to John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and all women who are still fighting for equal rights.

Too controversial? Here’s what Lennon himself had to say about the lyrics:

I started max lift training this week, which is where you train to lift as much weight as you can, all at once, rather than doing several sets and reps of a lower weight. I discovered I can deadlift more than my bodyweight, without any previous max lift training. This feel amazing, especially after completing my first unassisted pull-up a couple of weeks ago!

Chip says that max lift training is training your central nervous system to fire all out, all at once. If we don’t challenge our bodies to do this, there’s no reason for the central nervous system to ever build these types of connections.

“You’re training your fight response,” he said.

Yes! This is exactly where I am, and exactly what I need.  My default response is to freeze, to dissociate and separate from my body, which was an incredibly adaptive and creative response when I was growing up, but as an adult it severely limits my life.

When we train our bodies to do anything that’s outside of our usual range of comfort, we create abilities within ourselves that apply to all areas of our lives.

I began training at BodyTribe last January, after a devastating year in which I lost my job, ended a prolonged abusive relationship, and was acquaintance-raped. Twice. I was pathologically dissociated and completely shut down. I had no access to my body…and everything we do in life requires us to be in our bodies, since they are the vehicle for our spirit to interact in this world.  I started training with the intent to experience my body, to build connections.

My entire life experience was one of a dissociative wall, like a thick glass plate separating my heart from my throat and cutting off all access to awareness of my body below.  Regular strength training in this safe, nurturing and empowering environment, along with the deep therapy work I’ve been doing, has dissolved this wall. I felt it move down in my body, giving me access to sensing my torso, then my hips, then my thighs and legs.  I deeply believe this has played a major part in changing the course of my life.

What a different experience of working out! I used to run regularly, but out of a sense of hating my body and the twenty pounds I gained my first semester of college.  Now I am in deep relationship with my body, and the aesthetic changes have been secondary.

After school today, I’m going to find my max squat. It’s exciting to see what I can do, and to know it’s just the starting point!

Be sure to check out Chip’s amazing book, Lift with Your Head, his blog Physical SubCulture, and his DVD which will be coming out later this month. If you’re in the Sacramento area, check out the Winter Strength Camp coming up March 14-15. It’s a crash course on what we do here.  If you’re not in Sacramento, ask him about e-training!

The old, abuse-driven belief?

That my speaking up somehow burdens others. Somehow harms others.

That no one wants to hear my truth, that my truth will hurt them.

This is why I haven’t been writing here.

Of course, there was truth to this, when I learned the belief.

My voice was a huge threat to my father, who sexually abused from the time I was smaller than small nearly until I managed to leave home for college. He did all he could to choke my words off, to undermine me and my trust in myself so that I would never speak and reveal the atrocities being committed on me nightly. I had to choose between predictable, chronic sexual abuse at the hands of my father, an unpredictable life with my paranoid schizophrenic mother, or the completely unknown and threatening foster care system (where the chances of being further abused are high).

My speaking up at that time would have torn my family apart, would have ripped my twin brother and I out of our school district (the only safe constant in our lives), and into the hands of chaos.

Speaking up also would have meant admitting to myself that I was under constant assault.

I finally did tell this truth to my then-boyfriend, during my first semester in college. This truth was met by his rage at my father, and I felt so alone. I had never spoken it out loud, even to myself, before, and the weight of it paralyzed me. I could not function. I failed that first semester, losing scholarships and belief in my abilities. This was five years ago.

I’m back in school full time now, for the first time since then, after years of deep recovery work. My love of learning is my greatest strength, and school is home.

Yet more recently, the words of someone important to me ring in my head every time I raise my hand to speak up in school….words about me being “that” student; the one that everyone hates because she’s smart and is constantly engaged and likes to ask and answer questions all the time. That it’s not good to “lecture” others, as if intellectual humility requires my silence.

This hits on being a smart girl growing up, with messages that it’s not okay to be smarter than boys, or it was okay to be smart, as long as I don’t flaunt it by letting anyone know. This is on top of the silencing of the anger, the betrayal, the invasion that stems from incest.

Every time I raise my hand now, my heart races and I beat myself up…am I saying too much? Am I someone encroaching on the teacher’s territory? Did I talk for too long? Was I on-topic enough? Did I speak too frequently today? Did I say something too stupid? Something too smart?

The line repeats in my head: I shouldn’t speak I shouldn’t speak I shouldn’t speak I shouldn’t speak.

But…the feedback I’m getting from classmates directly contradicts this, and I am forced to reevaluate these cognitions; forced to decide if they serve me or not.

Yesterday, a classmate told me she takes notes whenever I speak up.

Last week, another classmate told me that he could tell I was educated, that I knew what I was talking about, that my contributions benefitted him.

A couple of weeks ago, as I chatted with fellow students before my Psychology of Peace & Conflict class, I mentioned I was interested in transferring to UC Berkeley, and was wondering if I could manage a Cognitive Science (concentration in Society, Culture & Cognition)/Peace & Conflict Studies double major.

The woman I was talking with, a stranger, said I was the right kind of person for Berkeley, that she always appreciated what I had to say in class, that I always said something interesting and relevant, and that I sounded like I should already be making $20/hour just for speaking.

Within the dissonance this creates, I am shown the right path.

I don’t have to live under the shadow of silence anymore.

It is my responsibility to tell the truth.

I choose the truth, I choose my ability to speak up, I choose to contribute what I know, what I have learned, and what I am learning about sexual abuse, trauma, society, healing, peace, courage, shame, beauty….all of it.