AoH Learning Lab: Calling Out for Help
“Calling Out for Help” is a little-known and rarely talked about survival response. In my opinion, within a regulated nervous system, it reflexively precedes the well-known survival responses, fight, flight and freeze. It is a mammalian behavior, and most distinctly, human, as we have the most sophisticated form of verbal communication.
“Calling Out for Help” typically shows up in infancy. When our cries for help (feed me, change my diaper, soothe me), are met with attunement, our nervous system will establish a secure relationship style with the Self, with others and with the world.
If our cries for help are met with dismissal - especially chronically - the nervous system will interpret it as rejection, neglect and abandonment. If this rupture is not repaired, we will often stop using this pathway, i.e., co-regulation, but we may also spend the majority of our life attempting to get the necessary repair.
As we are creatures of patterns, this “repair” may play itself out by getting into intimate relationships with those who lack attunement and empathy. As well as those who dismiss, neglect and abandon us, over and over and over again. This is also where co-dependency features may show up: trying to change others to meet our early need for compassionate and empathetic love.
In my clinical work, I’ve noted that clients will speak not of the traumatic event(s) per se, but rather, how no one showed up in their time of need, distress or crisis. Whether someone came to our aid or not, is often the determining factor of whether an event(s) becomes trauma or not.
Becoming aware of our relationship patterns and allowing compassion and forgiveness are first steps in repairing this rupture. Limbic revision and resonance is the second step. This second step entails establishing a safe, therapeutic and platonic relationship with another over an extended period of time.
AoH Learning Lab: Learned Helplessness
Learned Helplessness* is a psychological state that occurs when an individual believes he or she has no control over a situation, so the only (perceived) option is to give up. It is an unconscious and deeply embedded psychological acceptance of failure.
Over time, learned helplessness begins to affect self-efficacy: the extent to which an individual believes in his/her intrinsic ability to achieve goals.
This is typically due to relational trauma where one has chronically experienced interpersonal abuse. The mantra for this condition is, “failure is inevitable and unavoidable.” Especially when an individual is chronically annihilated, bullied, humiliated, undermined and invalidated, he or she begins to adopt a core belief that there is no way out other than to give up and give in. Over time, this belief bleeds into all aspects of one’s life. So, even when opportunities for change are available, they do not try or even sabotage the opportunities.
Physiologically, learned helplessness falls with the Dorsal Vagal pathway of the autonomic nervous system, i.e., freeze response. It tends to manifest deeper than only a momentary “freeze” in that it causes a collapse response somatically, where the individual feels immobilized to act and take care of its own organism (being).
From an attachment perspective, being helpless gets the individual what they needed (but did not get) from their caregivers: sympathy and attention. If this need is not interrupted and given healthy intervention, it can lead to narcissistic behaviors. Along with shame, learned helplessness is at the core of this devastating psychological disorder.
Nervous system depressants (alcohol, marijuana) exacerbate this condition and should be avoided, especially during intervention when new neural pathways are being formed.
*Learned Helplessness was coined by American psychologist, Martin Seligman, who began his studies on this psychological construct in the late 1960’s.
Related blogs: The Toxic Shame/Failure Loop
Are Your Stories Making You Sick?
Oftentimes, stories show up as defenses; they offer a coat of armoring around unprocessed traumas. When we were in our younger, formative years, they provided us a logical reason for why our caregivers would hurt us. Back then, the stories might have assisted us in staying alive. That is to say, they were an adaptation.
Simply put, traumas are the energy of incomplete arousal states* that are locked in our body. Arousal states hold tremendous amounts of charge and, therefore, reverberate when stuck in our bodies. In order to release the charge, the arousal experience needs to be completed.
By continuously telling stories, we are keeping the highly-charged arousal states locked in the body. These arousal states contain hormones**that are meant to stay in the body for only seconds at a time. Left in the body for longer periods, these chemicals induce inflammation, which then causes a host of physical issues, including disease.
The energy of these incomplete arousal states store themselves in the body; from the epidermis of the skin, all the way to the marrow in the bones, and everything in between. Therefore, to “process” traumas, we must utilize the body to gain access to the energy of these arousal states. A trained somatic practitioner is a necessary piece in this process. She/he will be able to gracefully create a container of safety while simultaneously challenging the stories created around the traumas.
*Flight, fight, freeze
**Namely, cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine
The Now-What Work:
Partake in a self-experiment. For 3 days do the following when you become activated by the world -
Without judgment and only curiosity, notice the core beliefs you tell yourself. Examples of core beliefs: “I did something wrong.” “I fail at everything.” “It’s always my fault.” “I’m not good enough for_____.” Etc, etc.
Notice the stories you tell others in defense of these core beliefs.
Roll up your sleeves, make an appointment with a somatic practitioner and prepare to find your true Self - who you are without your stories.
The Inner Work
I took this picture about 10 years ago. For 3 solid years, once a week, I’d drive to San Clemente to see my somatic therapist and afterwards, I’d stop at this outlook spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean along the 5 freeway. Overwhelmed by my traumas and grief, I’d watch the seagulls fly overhead. I’d imagine what it would be like to have the freedom of these hollow-boned ethereal creatures. Little did I know back then, I was practicing the art of nature integration.
That was also the time I’d started the Somatic Experiencing program. It was one of the (if not the most profoundly) shifting experiences of my life. I vividly recall Peter Levine telling us during training that it gets worse before it gets better and that there are no shortcuts - “slower is faster” is another famous mantra he used in doing the inner work.*
Like most of the counterparts of my species, I was seeking freedom. And, likewise, “why and how” were the existential and proverbial questions running circles around me.
For those 3 years in seeing my therapist on this weekly basis, trusting my body, the process, and another human were the components of surrender that were critical in forging a path of loving myself. In the somatics world, using the body to access traumas - and the resistance created in defense of them - is called bottom-up processing.
I see many people doing the top-down processing work: reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, even talk-therapy. I consider these auxiliary and support practices. But, they won’t permeate the deep and subtle tissues that are holding the traumas hostage. This is because they are mind-based tools. Sometimes they may even turn against us: when they are subconsciously used to keep us from taking responsibility, as they allow us to create a story around it being the fault of another, an experience, or even the world-at-large. That is to say, to partake in Victim Consciousness.
The individuals I see experiencing the most growth, expansion and relationship to purpose are those who are consistently showing up to meet with a practitioner. I’m going to make a bold statement here: we will not be able to resolve our traumas and stop hurting ourselves and others unless we are working with a practitioner, teacher, coach or sponsor on a regular basis. I do not see the type of lasting, embedded growth from top-down that I see from bottom-up.
There are many reasons for this necessity. The most important one I see: it allows for re-wiring. If you have relational trauma, the “predator” was likely caregiver(s) and/or family members. In other words, when you reached out for love (attachment and bonding), you were rejected in some form. This caused your nervous system to wire for protection (fight, flight, freeze) when it was seeking attunement, safety and protection.
No human is capable of giving unconditional love. We’re not yet evolved to that place. But, there are individuals who are highly attuned, compassionate and understanding - through their own inner work. These individuals will understand the finely-tuned art of pendulating between safety and challenge. They pair being a consummate figure that shows up consistently and reliably with gracefully show their vulnerable side when deemed beneficial.
Under these newfound interpersonal circumstances - almost miraculously - the nervous systems of the traumatized person will unconsciously begin to re-wire for safety in intimate moments with another human - perhaps for the first time ever. They will begin to practice recruiting the Ventral Vagal Complex (the cooperation, curiosity, connection and empathy pathway) over the Arousal System pathway (fight, flight, freeze). Eventually, they will use the Ventral pathway as a default mode.
If your nervous system has been wired to use the arousal pathway as a way to cope, you’ll notice a pattern of highs and lows in your life. You’ll also notice that the ego will come in with myriad defenses as to why you are not doing the inner work. Notice “when” statements such as, “When I have______ figured it.” “When I have the money.” The greatest act of love for yourself might be mobilizing against these defenses by taking action to set up an appointment with a practitioner.
I’m now 10 years into this work on a personal level. I have a standing appointment with my mentor/therapist that I consider as critical as exercise, nutrition and meditation. Doing the inner work is not the easy route but it is the one that will stick. I can tell you firsthand, that the freedom I was seeking, I have now begun to embody; I have a place in my body where I source not only my freedom, but my power as well.
The “why” and “how” answers are appearing as I’m seeking them less. This is not to say conflict, confusion, grief and sadness are gone. But, it is to say that I’m in right relationship with them now. The shame, blame, projection and victim are seeing their last moments and the pathway of love (ventral) is rising up in the vacancy they’ve left.
I wish this for all of humanity. I believe in you. I believe in us. I believe in love. Let’s put an end to the wars within so we can put an end to the wars on the out.
*Also called Shadow Work
Victim Consciousness & Global Codependency
The world doesn’t need to be saved. The world doesn’t need to be changed.
The vastness in me as a human being is immeasurable. The vastness to inspire and love others is infinite.
Along the path, I have spent years, even decades, attempting to puppeteer my world. “If only he/she/they would…” was my subconscious motto. I created imaginary worlds and models for the way other people should be behaving.
This desire for the world and people to change was born from truly being victimized. That was, and still is, my personal work: how to save myself and show-up for myself in the way I needed when I was unable to care for myself.
The stuckness in feeling perpetually victimized led to a codependency on others. I was like that bird in the book, “Are You My Mother?” Rooting around the world looking for the person, community or experience that was going to make me feel better. I was a taker coming from a place of need - an ugly reality pill I had to swallow to get to the next place on the path; to get out of the looping quality of victim consciousness.
These days, I still feel the urge to reach out beyond my being when I feel alone and abandoned. My desire for them to change and show up in the form that would lick my wound away rears its ugly head. Left unfettered, I call this Global Codependency and it can render itself in disease-like form.
Only now, I’m in relationship with it. I know it’s a trauma response to the terror of being abandoned and annihilated. Now I stop myself from reaching out for that proverbial bottle - that knee-jerk reaction is what caused my addiction in the first place. I take that outward-reaching energy and turn it back on myself. Sometimes I need to talk to myself in that, “there there child, you are loved” way.
But, what keeps me truly regulated is staying true to my daily practice. In yoga it’s called Sadhana. When I veer away from my practice, I see this as my victim consciousness getting kicked up. Instead of punishing myself for falling off my spiritual practice wagon, I see it as a sign post. What do I need? What am I missing? What am I craving? These are the questions I ask my gut and heart (not mind!).
Simply taking a few quiet minutes everyday to check in with myself this way always helps me to come back to my own excellence. My body knows that being born as a human is an immense gift. As a human, I have the potential to make mass amounts of change by simply increasing my vibration. Stay inward and the outward will spontaneously follow suit. That’s my mantra and I do believe it is love.
Client Question: Can mental illness be played-out in a conscious community/spiritual group?
There's a lot to be said about this topic. Here’s one perspective that is based in the psychobiological approach. And, as a side-note, the question was asked in reference to the members of the group, not the teacher/leader of the group. Dysregulation within spiritual groups/conscious communities is almost always a two-way street (from teacher to student and vice versa). I’ll address the teacher/leader aspect in another blog post.
I see one of (if not THE) greatest addictions being: the need to be accepted. This need usually stems from being annihilated in one’s family of origin. To cure the horrendous sensations associated with annihilation, the individual goes about trying to find a "tribe" who will unconditionally accept them. Many spiritual communities make this delusive claim and so these individuals project onto the members - and especially the leaders - a sort of unreasonable omnipotence. They unconsciously go about trying to get met what they didn't get from their caregivers and other origin family members. This can create a codependent relationship - among the group and the leader(s). This dynamic additionally creates an unbearable experience if a severance takes place, as it may read like a double-hit of annihilation.
It is critical that we do the groundwork of finding our individual place on this planet, having a right-relationship with reality, and integrating into the material world before we start doing "spiritual work." Otherwise, we risk getting disassociated into the highly ethereal realm that exists in the spiritual world: dreamy words and ideas, far-off concepts and worlds that are intangible begin to create an existential crisis because we haven't done our own existence work in the first place. Roots before fruiting, to use a tree metaphor.
It becomes extremely challenging - by way of confusion - when the members start picking up and speaking a common vernacular; there is a sense of being understood and connected - an element that often goes missing relational trauma. This vernacular is usually coming solely from the mind (where disassociation takes place). The mind is a fabrication storehouse, so it's not rooted in anything reality-based. And, soon enough, the chasm between one's dis-integrated nature and their split-self (spiritual self in this case), will be brought to surface by the world.
Us humans are masters at detecting incongruency. So, while not everyone will be able to clearly identify what is giving them an "off" feeling about these people, they will eventually get called out on their incongruence in some form or another. Incongruence being: words not matching up with actions. An adept (learned teacher) will be able to quickly detect how and where these individuals are off and compassionately re-direct them to the correct place on the path.
Unlike the eastern world, us westerners do not have a spiritual practice imbedded in our culture. So, many people will go straight up to trying on the clothes of the spiritual world without first knowing their size. We will eventually get kicked down and told to start with the groundwork. This seems to be a rite of passage for many of us.
Unfortunately, for some who are prone to disassociation - and as an adaptive measure - the spiritual world can act as a vehicle for splitting, delusion, and even hallucination. Left unfettered and for an extended period of time, one can believe they are truly (and for the first time - maybe ever), accepted and, therefore, invincible. Who doesn’t want to be bathed in a near-constant stream of positive affirmations? This is very dangerous territory as it's a paradigm built from the ego and is destined to implode. So, yes, it can be a slippery slope, leading to a mechanism on which one can met-out their mental illness if they are headed in that direction.
The Middle Path
I would like to share a reading from one of the spiritual texts I read from on a regular basis, paraphrased from Pandit Rajmani Tigunait. PhD.
This is about "The Middle Way," also known as the middle path or right direction in Buddhism.
It was discovered by Buddha experientially - as is the case with all embodied teachers. This is as opposed to simply reading and studying. Some have deemed the former “unearned wisdom," and the latter, "earned wisdom."
Buddha was born a prince and was introduced to kama shastra, the art of sensory pleasure. His father, the king, made sure he was only introduced to the best teachers practiced in wordly manners. He was also kept away from any trace of grief or sorrow. As fate would have it, he came upon a sick person, an old man, and a corpse. He began to question his life filled with pleasures. He saw how sorrow, grief and wanting more when these pleasures went away would appear.
So he resolved to discover the root cause of this sorrow and grief. He committed to self study which led him to the renunciate path. He believed this path would burn his inner impurities, allowing his mind's brilliance to come forth. As many of us know the story, he sat under a bodhi tree for 39 days without food, drink or sleep. Upon noticing his near-death state, a woman named Sujata gave him some water and rice and he regained consciousness.
He concluded that extremes lead nowhere. That indulgence nor extreme restraint aided in self-discovery. From this moment of understanding, he began his practices and conducted his life in moderation, even interacting with people in moderation. He discovered that he no longer was numbing and indulging his senses nor was he restraining them. In this process, he discovered effortless effort not only in his spiritual practices, but in life in general.
This allowed him to reach higher samadhi - the highest state of meditation in yoga. The division between lower and higher samadhi is a transition from duality to non-duality; from being ruled by the phenomenal world (time, space, and the law of cause and effect) to the realm of transcendental. The practiced yogi or bodhisattva has reached this state and is able to move freely from one world to the other. He or she is simultaneously "here" and "there." They are able to be the witness to their own strengths and weaknesses; to positive and negative tendencies. They are able to discern uplifting tendencies from afflicting ones and transcend both. They understand through their experience that fulfilling a craving gives birth to more cravings, which creates a cycle (samsara) and negative karmas and Samskaras…addiction in western terminology.
We all have the inner workings to get to this state. It's a practice of discipline to devotion: committing to a daily practice (sadhana) and staying with it until it becomes embedded in your system, i.e., secondary, so that life becomes one filled with ease and enjoyment. We do our practices not to make negative feelings and sensations go away. We do our practices to build capacity to be in right direction (better relationship) with ALL feelings and sensations.
Sending you lots of strength and love, LB
Your Body is Not a Halfway House
Your body is not a halfway house
Your soma is not a corridor to those who have not yet learned how to integrate into the world. Your psyche is not an open domain for those who have not sat with discipline then the devotional path to the extent they can govern their own being. Your heart is not a repository with which those who lack capacity can use to insert their bio-waste. Your eyes and the depth of their gaze are open only to those who can reflect back to you your soul’s purpose. The openness of your authentic smile is only accessible to those who have created the capacity to honor and stay with your vulnerability, kindness, and love.
You have swam in the icy, turbulent waters of the Arctic. You have earned your emotional sobriety and recovery of Soul that has allowed you access to the Bering Strait of the Divine. In turn, you can now feed off of the nutrient rich waters of the Pacific. The resources endowed within you were hard won, evidenced by the sweat on your brow and and ache in your body. You have paid back your debts, apologized to all you’ve hurt and made living amends so that your karmas are now allowing your dharma to shine through Your back is not a flotation device on which another can use to access the fertile waters and lands of peace, contentment, abundance, sovereignty and joy; the Divine knows we all must swim to get to these shores. From here on out, no one gains entry to you and your field unless it is duly earned.
Stand up with me now. Root your feet into your first Mother. Allow her electromagnetic energy to run up your legs. Now give it back to her. Feel the beauty of self and co-regulation; back and forth, back and forth. Bring your collar bones apart and the tips of your scapula together. Breath into your heart space. Feel the aliveness through which the bundle of nerves pulses in and out of this precious plexus.
Bring your gaze up and look out. You are grown up now. You will no longer collapse into niceness among bullies. You no longer need to be saved, for you now have embodied self-protection. You can stand up and speak up for yourself. No one is ever going to take advantage of you or your vital resources. Breath in, breath out. You are love. You are love. You are love.
AoH Learning Lab: Emotional Incest
Emotional (or Covert) Incest is a severe form of codependence that is played out as a parent seeks emotional support from their child/children. The parent views his/her child/children as a close friend, partner/spouse, or even their own parent. Codependancy is a lack of intimacy with the Self. So, the parent begins “using” his/her child as a surrogate intimate relationship; to fill the gap of intimacy they did not receive from their caregivers early on.
Emotional incest does not actually involve sexual abuse, but may create similar symptoms. It can occur when the children are of juvenile and adult-age. It may, in fact, “turn on” when the children become adults - the reasons for this are beyond the scope of this post.
The parent may justify their behavior has being “very close” to their kids. They may even, receive praise for being so close to their kids. But, Emotional Incest is too close; it is a form of extreme enmeshment where little to no boundaries exist. Enmeshment may be expressed, in this case, by the sharing of social activities, money, clothes, a bedroom, even a bed or showering together.
Just like every psychological and physiological disorder, emotional incest runs on a spectrum. On one end, there is the parent who identifies their children as “my best friends,” to the extreme end of the spectrum, where a parent parties and engages in drug and alcohol intoxication with their kids.
The most extreme manifestation of Emotional Incest is a parent who partakes in nudity (beyond age-appropriateness) with their kids - again, even if the kids are grown. Skinny-dipping, is one example. This is where the line between Emotional Incest and sexual abuse may get blurry.
As with all forms of codependence, Emotional Incest stems from immaturity. That is to say, the parent’s nervous system became thwarted - and hence stuck - in an early developmental period due to abuse suffered in their own childhood. So instead of looking inward to investigate what is causing stress or disruption, the parent looks to his or her children to get needs met - the way a child would look to his or her parents for this.
A father or mother who engages in Emotional Incest, oftentimes, lacks age-appropriate friends. They may have no age-appropriate friends at all. Again, they utilize their kids to get social needs met. When Emotional Incest is occurring where the children are of adult age, the parent may identify their kid’s friends as their own.
Emotional Incest can get triggered, so the parent “cycles” in and out of being an adult to child version of him/herself. This is where “splitting” may occur. Getting too close (enmeshed) with the child or being away from them (feeling abandoned) can cause the adult to unconsciously split and regress to the age of the thwarted development. This can also be triggered when the parent becomes involved in an intimate (especially) romantic relationship where early bonding and attachment ruptures are brought to consciousness and mirrored by the other. It can additionally get triggered simply by overwhelm/stress in the nervous system.
When the triggering takes place, the regression may be expressed as the parent not being able to take care of themselves. They may suddenly step away from adult responsibilities (paying bills, missing appointments, making the bed, washing clothes). They may begin wearing dirty/same clothes, start eating unhealthy foods, “hide” (a freeze response), leave in some form (flight response), have anger outbursts onto others and the world (fight response), and start to feel disorganized and chaotic. If this individual was physically or sexually abused as a child, he or she may engage in self-harm or a form of self-flagellation as a reenactment of this stage. The self-harm may range from unconsciously putting oneself in “homeless” or destitute types of living situations to actual harming of his/her body. The “child” who is stuck in the body of the adult needed to be protected and taken care of during that stage, but clearly was not. While it may seem they are acting out or being inappropriate with their own children, it is a cry for help. Nevertheless, it creates confusion and disorganization for all parties involved.
Also within the realm of splitting, Emotional Incest often causes role reversal, where parentification takes place; the child will take on roles of the mother or father in the areas where it went missing. Unfortunately, when these individuals turn to their children to get the protection, care, unconditional love, safety and attunement they missed from their parents, it is a wholly unfair and unreasonable responsibility to place on children, even if they are of adult age. It may, in fact, cause the children to begin splitting into personas or personalities to cope with their own overwhelm in having to take care of a parent who lacks the skills to govern their own being and integrate into the world.
As to be expected, there is a co-morbidity with Emotional Incest and substance use - by the parent and children. Firstly, due to enmeshment, a lack of boundaries and hierarchy, the children are being robbed of important developmental stages that must be fully entered and experienced to move on to the next stage. Secondly, if a parent is using substance with their children (even adult age), the parent is modeling to the children that substance is a way of coping with stress and reality; that one uses external means instead of practicing intimacy with one’s Self.
If you see yourself in any version of the above description, know that repair of early attachment and bonding ruptures is how you heal. I recommend seeking a practitioner who has knowledge in: The psychobiological approach, the nervous system, somatic integration, family systems, parts work and Attachment Theory. And most important: finding a practitioner with whom you feel connected to. Connection with another is how we re-establish safety in our being.
Related blog: Substance-Use as a Substitute to Intimacy, Bonding and Attachment
Substance-Use as a Substitute to Intimacy, Bonding & Attachment
I work in the world of trauma. I am afforded access to some of the deepest, darkest and most protected parts of individuals. It is a great privilege to be invited to these sacred places. These individuals are not only learning their true selves and re-wiring their nervous system via a healthy relationship, they are also providing me with empirical knowledge. I use this knowledge to distill education in written and verbal form so that a greater audience may learn and grow. The contents of this blog, especially the empirical data, come by virtue of my clients. I am hugely grateful to them for this precious gift.
Here are some stats I’ve pulled from my client base: In the beginning stages of committing to doing the inner work - which I called “existence-level work” - about 90 percent of my clients have acknowledged they are addicted to substance. Of this 90 percent, 40 percent are poly-users (alcohol and marijuana) and 60 percent are mono-users, split about 50 percent: alcohol or marijuana. The population that is 40+ tends towards alcohol, while the population 35 and under towards marijuana.
Through my private session interactions, I have concluded that nearly every “disorder” is a manifestation of a very early bonding and attachment rupture. Our mother is our first intimate relationship. This relationship establishes how we will ultimately interface with the world: through a filter of safety or a filter of threat. If her nervous system had the early experience of being nurtured and attuned to, she passed on to us the feeling of security; that the world is safe, caring, predictable and supportive. If her nervous system had unprocessed bonding and attachment ruptures, she passed on to us the hyper-viglience associated with feeling insecure and threatened. If there was physical, sexual and/or emotional abuse on top of that from either mom or dad, a recipe for a highly disgorganized and chaotic nervous system was imprinted into our nervous system.
As we are the most relational animal on the planet, we will always seek to have relationships; we will always desire bonding and attachment. But, when other humans have been the cause of our threat-based nervous system, we will seek that feeling outside of our Selves. This is where substance may come into the picture and begin to play a very dangerous substitute. What we ultimately sought from our mother during infancy was to have our life’s purpose (dharma) reflected back to us. When we would eye-gaze with her, we were asking her to teach us how to source our own being for answers to life’s fundamental experiential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose on this earth? Through the immense love only the feminine could provide - via soothing touch, caring eyes, presence, honoring, containment and fluidity - without words, she answered these questions.
What if we didn’t receive that from our mother? And what if our father was heavy handed and unpredictable in his discipline? What if the extended family member or family friend I loved, sexually abused me? Then, the world became a danger zone populated with supposed booby traps where I continually felt ambushed. Who does one turn to in such a war where it feels like constant subterfuge by way of one’s own subconscious? The answer becomes not who but what. And that “what” is easily fulfilled by substance. It eases the pain (instantly if smoked or injected), it allows me to breath deeper, to forget about the “war outside,” and to have a false sense of intimacy with my Self (and others if present), that I’ve been so deeply desiring.
What I have discovered via my clients, is that when one has an incoherent and dysregulated nervous system, this can become a very slippery slope. When substance-use becomes a substitute for real connection, intimacy and bonding, we are very close, if not already in, the throes of addiction. Here are some of the signs of using substance as a substitute for Intimacy, Bonding and Attachment:
All or most of my social activities involve substance use
I tend to avoid experiences and/or people who do not use
I am a poly-user - in the US, the two substances most used are alcohol and marijuana
It would be difficult or impossible to be partnered with someone who did not use substance
I have chosen to live a life where I can use on a regular basis over a deeply loving relationship (where my substance-use was an on-going point of conflict)
I have lied about my substance use and/or hid it from another
I have been on the wagon/off the wagon cycle multiple times in the last few years
I stop using to prove to myself that I can quit anytime and as justification to continue to use
I take it personally and/or become extremely defended over my preferred substance when someone speaks ill about it.
I search for reasons that’s it good for me to use, i.e., it promotes my creativity, I’m celebrating, so-and-so celebrity uses it, etc.
Despite it being a risk to my health, I continue to use. Ex: I have asthma and continue smoking
When I have gone sober in the past, it has negatively affected my relationships, i.e., I feel peer-pressure, I feel like I’m no longer part of “the tribe” when I’m not out in the lot smoking and/or drinking
I self-medicate using substance, i.e., when in distress I drink and/or smoke more; I turn towards substance instead of healthy habits.
I have created a relationship with my adult children that almost always involves substance use. I feel like my habitual use may have contributed to their habitual use.
The biggest sign that one is exchanging true intimacy for substance?
Anthropomorphism: applying and describing substance with human-like characteristics, i.e. “I looove smoking.” “Whiskey feels like a warm hug.” Those in the depths of a false intimate relationship with substance, will often give a proper name to substance, “I’m going to go out and spend a few moments with Mary.”
Professional disclaimer: I am not a drug and alcohol specialist. My speciality is trauma resolution with an emphasis on relational trauma, attachment and bonding ruptures - there is high co-morbidity rate with these elements and substance use/abuse.
I don’t promote or even suggest a sober lifestyle. I, myself, live a mostly sober life but not 100%. My private practice aims to foster higher levels of consciousness, freedom, sovereinty and choice in life; a life where one is free of attachments; where one is not weighted and tied to external dependences and addictions.
Regular and heavy substance can, and is often, a huge impediment to living this type of lifestyle. My clients come to me seeking to have a more intimate relationship with their Self so they can experience deeper and less conflicted relationships with others and the world at large. I work with individuals on the path to freedom by way of utilizing their own being to find coherence and regulation. Upon taking this path for an extended period of time, most people - in my experience - end up choosing a sober or mostly sober life as living as close to consciousness and the Divine breeds this type of decision.
Related blog: Emotional Incest
Emancipation Proclamation
Two months ago - against the will of my subconscious - I went on a boating trip with most of the members of my family of origin. Due to the nature of trauma I’d been personally sorting through over the last few years, this wasn’t a good idea on any count. Beginning with my dad, I’ve experienced countless traumatic experiences with bully men. I’ve had a history of using “hope” as a way to cope, and a means to try to understand why someone who is supposed to love you, would inflict pain in the way that they did. Low-and-behold, I “hoped” that this trip would turn out peaceful.
One form of disassociation begets another when it comes to trauma. Cognitively, I understand that this list of men who have hurt me and supposedly loved me, were all disassociating through splitting: rage, substance use and leaving me. I in-turn, would disassociate by “hoping” they’d change. By hoping they’d stop yelling at me. By hoping they’d stop hitting me. By hoping they’d finally step off the substance-wagon-dance and be done with it, so they could finally love me more than the substance. I believed the love I gave them would help them heal.
I’ll spare the details and stick to the meaningful parts of the story. On the last day of a 3-day trip of near-constant intoxication of most members, I found myself on a boat with the member who took the crown of “most inebriated.” A beer in one hand, a marijuana vape in another, I found myself pleading with a poly-using bully to apologize to his daughter, as there had been a physical altercation moments before with her boyfriend.
When I asked him to stand up, be the adult, be the parent and be a Man, I pushed all of his shame buttons. Then came trauma no-man’s-land, as his only protection was to defend and project. I was sitting in the back seat of the moving boat. He was on a chair just a few feet opposite and facing me, yelling demeaning remarks with his smoke and beer breath. I’ve had to endure countless men in my personal space with this emotional lethal mixture; most bullying and/or abusing me. It’s an olfactory night-terror for me - quite literally - as the man who snuck in my bed and molested me, emanated this vapor. Smell is the sense most highly associated with memory; it has a direct route to the limbic system, including the amygdala and the hippocampus - structures related to emotion and memory.
Every time I smell this mixture, especially drunk beer breath, I’m met with a raging waterfall of terror throughout my entire body. I’ve had many nights where I’ve laid in bed with an ex (of some sort), barely breathing as an attempt to hold in terror and rage-related sensations because I was told I was “crazy, over-reacting, emotional and sensitive.” I’ve begun to call this form of gaslighting, spiritual homicide. It’s an annihilation so deep, one feels like every part of their being has - in an instant - been gutted from their body.
I distinctly recall sitting on that seat in the boat, and the quote, “If you can think in front of a tiger, you will surely succeed,” (for some oddly-placed reason) was playing in my head. In what was likely just a few seconds, but felt like a century, I attempted to obey my ego by sitting there and remaining calm, while “the tiger” was yelling and energetically inserting his toxic karmas into my body - like I’d obeyed and tolerated thousands of times. Then my beautiful, always-in-truth instincts rose up and said, “Fuck you ego! I’m not obeying anymore!” I literally stood up to the tiger, to the bully, and to all the men who had hurt me…to all of them who had used my kind demeanor as a route to my body as a host for their traumas. I began yelling in his face, “Stop it, Stop it, Stop it! Shut up, Shut Up, Shut up, “ over and over again.
While the boat was still moving, I suddenly jumped out and began swimming for shore. I had to flee - I was no longer going to endure abuse from bully men, even if it cost me my life. The sun was just setting - it had already been a long day of boating, skiing and coping with drunkenness - so I was very fatigued. It was a good mile to swim, and at about three-fourths of the way in, I began to tire - I’d never swam a long distance in my life. I looked at the shore and I still had a ways to go. Then my body started to feel heavy, my legs felt like they were being pulled downward…like I was sinking. The thought of dying was real. With concentrated effort, I raised my arm out of the water to usher help. I saw a man look my direction, but he was probably a few too many sheets-to-the-wind and incoherent, as most everyone on the hotel grounds was. It was a reoccurring scene that had been played out numerous times in my life: needing help, needing saving and the so-called savior was too checked out to do so.
The feeling of my life-force coming up to save me in that moment was something I’ll never forget. The will to survive is a miracle when we’re faced with dire circumstances. Tears stream as I write this because God spoke to me. God told me that my life-force would get me there, that I had to make it because I was swimming not only for me and my emancipation, but for all my clients and countless other women who needed validation in order to source their voice back to song. When I didn’t think I could swim anymore, something in me (God) told me to look down. There were rocks that allowed me to stand and take footing. That break got me to shore. And, when I got there, I felt like a sea urchin coming out of the water after a long period of hiding. Perhaps some messy version of Amphitrite who hid in Atlas, all weary, beaten-up but yet ready to fight to protect the sea; the goddess who embodied the moaning of the fish, seals and dolphins.
The gravitas and the symbolism of this recent experience only came to me three nights ago when, unable to sleep, God again rose up in me, this time in the form of a lucid dream. I was told to write down all the toxic experiences these bully men had put into my body without consent. Because men who bully are the most insecure animals in the pack, I wouldn’t be able to sit in front of them and read them the list - if they didn’t have the strength and capacity to take responsibility for their traumas then, why would they now? Within that frame of living in reality (and no longer in a disassociated state of hope), I was to find someone with whom I implicitly trusted to read my list to. The next step was to use this technique with my female clients - what all survivors are seeking (in order to heal) is for our experience, and the pain ensued to be validated; for the felt sense of being annihilated to dissolve.
On January 1st, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, changing the status of over 3.5 million enslaved African Americans to be free. In no way do I compare my experience to that of the enslaved African Americans. I do believe, however, as did Lincoln, that every human is deserving of freedom; that no other human has a right to take that away from another. Yoga too sees freedom (Moshka) as our birthright. I see the horrible traumas in the eyes and bodies of my female clients on a daily basis. I work with them slowly and safely, so that one day, they can have their day of Emancipation from the horrors of PTSD that they’ve endured for decades.
Like most of my female clients, I’m a survivor. This allows me a rare perspective of empathy. For some reason, I’ve been wholly gifted with a body of work (Somatics and Yoga) that allows me to witness the life-force, instincts, sense of existence, boundaries and felt-sense of safety come back online in my clients. As of late, I’ve freely cried with these beautiful humans who are showing up consistently to do the inner work so this cycle of annihilation ends.
If you are reading this and it resonates, hear me when I say: you are somatically deserving of freedom, peace, contentment, love, understanding, validation, safety and honesty (even when difficult). You are deserving of your story to be heard. There are superb humans who have the honesty, integrity, capacity and coherence to stay with you and your experience. Take an oath with me to never be left again. The greater intelligence in you and the universe is sending you heaps of love and support!
Tolerance vs. Capacity
Tolerance = Splitting off from one’s Self
Capacity = Staying with one’s Self
Tolerance for stress is a very different thing than having capacity for stress. When we have tolerance for stress, our nervous system and our being is enduring or coping with the experience and the sensations it created; just trying to keep it’s head above water. When we grow up with relational trauma, we are often faced with learned helplessness – a feeling that no matter what we do, nothing will change. So, we hold the stress of the experience in our body. When this stress hits the energy threshold that our nervous system is able to contain, we begin to “split” off from our Self; a dissociation.
We need somewhere to “put” the intense energy of the sensations showing up in our body. It can be expressed through creation of personas or personalities, literally running away, use of substance, enmeshing with others, hiding, lack of communicating, incongruent laughing, etc. In essence, it is a false sense of being able to hold stress. Additionally, it is a non-growth state because we are “pushing” the energy down into our bodies as opposed to allowing it to be absorbed; the latter being where growth, i.e., capacity, in the nervous system is created.
In relationships, this often shows up as incoherence: an inability to hold, empathize and have compassion for the other’s stress when I’m under stress. In other words, I do not have the bandwidth in my nervous system to hold my own stress, let alone the stress of another. Those with this type of nervous system tend to have difficultly staying in intimate relationships.
Capacity on the other hand, is an authentic and embodied sense of holding stress. If we were fortunate enough to have had caregivers who were attuned to our needs (especially during the formative years), our nervous systems grew capacity by being held, touched and soothed when we cried out for help. This gave us a sense of safety and security in the world; a space to learn how to speak up and take care of our Selves. Through this process, we were able to transfer excess energy onto a loving and secure caregiver. This allowed us to learn the integral experience of relationshipping: co-regulation and self-regulation. This, in turn, fostered an ability in our bodies to have inter and intra coherence. In other words, the ability to hold multiple states (mine and another’s, for example) at the same time. Those who have large capacity in their nervous systems tend to have very fulfilling intimate relationships.
Working on growing capacity. Fortunately, we can repair the ruptured bonds we experienced as young children and rewire new relationship pathways. This can be done within a romantic relationship but safety is key and I’d recommend working with a therapist who is learned in somatic work, nervous system regulation and early attachment/bonding ruptures.
Where I see the most growth is via the use of communication. As aforementioned, many of us had the experience of our voice being thwarted through learned helplessness. While learning to stay with ourselves through hyper arousal states (fight or flight) - as opposed to going away (splitting) - we can speak to the desires and needs of the part of us that got pushed down as a child. From this sacred space, we can begin to find our inherent power. This will allow us to absorb and integrate the power parts of our survival responses (intuition, life force, kundalini) and discard the biowaste parts. Just remember, every time we utilize an old adaptation of “splitting,” we are not growing. Stay with your Self!
What’s The Point?
What’s the point?
I recently got an update from my phone regarding the hours per day I’m logging screen time. When I realized how much time (per day, per week, per month, etc.), I was spending in hustle mode to get my business going, I had to take a moment to grieve the time I wasn’t out living a life.
Like many of you, I spend a lot of time reading and studying about living a better life, but I had to ask myself, “Are you using this information to actually live a well-lived life?” The answer - in numbers - was right in front of me. The truth couldn’t be denied.
So what is the point of doing the inner work? The good news is that the answer is quite simple. The point is to: live in the present moment and ignite our life force (prana, chi, qi, elan vital).
We are wired to use past experiences to infer the future, so it’s a moment to moment checking in with oneself to live life in the here-and-now. As Lao Tzu famously said, “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
So we do the inner work to clear the karmic patterning, so we can see the forest through the trees. But, let’s remember to come up for air too. For, as much as we dive into the depths, we have to put our work to the test. We only live through experiencing and hopefully, that includes dancing and flowing (at least) as much as we’re reading, listening to podcasts, and having the deep conversations. Otherwise - dare I say - it’s just another distraction, dependence or addiction.
Make a conscious choice to be among those who are living a solvent life in relationship to all connections: Self, others, community, money, home, nature, world and cosmos. We can simply make note of those who are bankrupt in one or more of these areas and be an inspiration, as our job is not to save people.
The picture above is of a magical spot I love spending time in. It’s creekside and among ancient oaks. It plunks me right into present moment when I’m there. Nature is the most potent salve and antidote to this ever-distracted society we live in.
How would life be different if we were to match the time we spend on screens to the time spent in nature?
“Voluntary Simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.” - John Kabat-Zinn
ReplyForward
A Love Letter to the Artist
In my clinical work, I’m drawn to the artists and the creatives. Or are they drawn to me? One can only ponder this as we only influence one another…completely. Enduringly, intrapersonally and interpersonally, we are ever and only seeking to forage for our aliveness. This “mining” gets played out in my work with my clients - lucky me!
Recently, we have moved in unison to use art to descend into the more granular layers of the Self…getting closer to Soul and Dharma with variated art mediums. Alice Coltrane (yes, John’s wife) and her Universal Consciousness work was recently used as a way to move a young artist out of her head and into her heart.
I told her this - and, it’s great advice for all of us:
Don’t tell anyone what you’re going to do or even what you’re doing. Just do it and put it out there, unabashedly. If we have to tell people what we’re going to do or what we’re doing, then we’re likely pandering to that part of us that needs approval and attention. That’s head, not heart. Art does not seek approval, it seeks disruption of the most beautiful quality.
Alas, all art originates from the most untamed part of us: the heart. As the saying goes, the rib is a cage to contain the wildness. Anatomically, the health of the heart is found in the millisecond-timed variation between the heartbeats. It’s as if we’re made for art that causes disruption. Can it be that syncopation - a stress on the offbeat - is our natural state? Can it be that we’re wired to place rhythmic stresses where they “normally” wouldn’t occur?
In either case, and as such, my clients have moved me to not only see life as one big rendering of art, but to also seek further, by seeing what “society” is: a process of recognition. This recognition is comforting as we are beings drawn to pattern recognition. But, if art is not that which makes us more conscious by way of discomfort, then is it not art? Is it not a production of conscious artistry as opposed to passive popularity? God save us if the the latter over the former!
And, is the latter not what is on the current hamster wheel? I’ve a slight envy for those living in periods of artistic movement; wherein art, there existed a stratum of the intelligentsia of society. Those poking and prodding radical and reformist ideas by way of different mediums, intending to invoke original schemas. Never placating to the desensitized and stupefied.
Unapologetically uninspired by what is being offered on the passive popularity menu -“food” devoid of the nourishment of awe, I’ve been poking my nose in the obscure… dare be dubious and determinate. It’s out there, just not available on the fast-food- art circuit. It’s been so long since I’ve been moved to tears or shivers by music - either lyrically or musically. It is not too much to ask art to assist me in gaining access to my aliveness. It appears, we just need to search, to work a bit to find the artfully obscure. Perhaps search within the “Uneasy Listening” genre?
I’ll leave these ideas here: an incomplete completion. Does that make you uncomfortable? Good!
On Holding Both: The Art of Pendulation
As of late, I’ve been asked often about being alone. More specifically, my choice to be alone. Nearly a year ago, I made the conscious decision to truly be with myself. My intent was to scrap off those bottom bits of codependency that haunted me; the ones tucked away in the far-off corners of my body. I sought to feel the sovereignty of being completely self-reliant; to once-and-for-all, break the ties that bound me to my psychological history.
Just recently, it came to me that in the process of being alone, I no longer feel alone, even when I am SO alone. It reminded me of the story of the Russian cosmonaut who was solo up in space in this tiny capsule when, after a few hours, he hears a ticking coming from the dashboard. It won’t stop and he’s got 20 more days left of the mission to go. Ultimately, he must succumb to the noise. He does so by falling in love with it - he turned the incessant ticking into music.
I recall a night when I was on my “mission,” of being alone where I became suicidal. It was a crazy scene: my big-S-self was calling the bluff of my little-s-self, as if to say, “Oh yeah, watta ya gonna do?” We tend apologize for talking about suicidal ideations and macabre subjects of the like. But, the truth is that through the process of facing a part of my mortality, I am able to love deeper and have empathy where I didn’t before. The most gorgeous illumination? My internal boundaries that we’re all innately equipped with, rose up to meet me - for perhaps - the first time in my life.
It seems that there is no such thing as a balance in life. It’s more of growing a capacity to hold two constructs, emotions or sensations at the same time, and allow the pendulum to swing between them. In that space where the pendulum swings, we tussle, push, pull, learn and grow. I believe this is the fertile ground - the tilling, if you will - from which our existence, humanity and intuition rise up in natural form, no longer besieged by conditioning. In somatic work, this practice is called pendulation.
This “holding both” or pendulation that I speak of, was eloquently and humanly studied and written about by Carl Jung. His famous words remind us that everything is made up of both a shadow and a light energy. And, that the process of individuation involves touching gently into both and not getting caught up or stuck in the state in which they create sensation-wise in our bodies. One of my favorite writings from his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, elucidating this subject:
“The world into which we are born is brutal and cruel, and at the same time one of divine beauty. Which element we think outweighs the other, whether meaninglessness or meaning, is a matter of temperament. If meaninglessness were absolutely preponderant, the meaningfulness of life would vanish to an increasing degree with each step in our development. But that is- or seems to me- not the case. Probably as in all metaphysical questions, both are true: Life is-or has- meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and will the battle.”
Yes, yes, Dr. Jung, probably both are true…
How to Stop Being a Victim
How to Stop Being a victim: Fully Feel Into Being Victimized…
One of the biggest stages of growth I experienced was when I fully accepted and took responsibility for being a victim. This was the stage where I grew up, became an adult, and began the process of loosening the grip of codependency.
That awareness was the cognitive part (top down). Then came the somatic part (bottom up) - and this is where the true healing came in - when I gave myself permission to fully “feel” into being victimized. For decades, I held on to the victim persona. I had stories and many reasons why I was stuck and not moving in the direction I wanted. But, I had be with the bodily sensations to get the integration my nervous system was asking for.
The reality was that I truly was victimized. As a child, I’d experienced nearly every major abuse: physical, sexual and relational: neglect, abandonment, enmeshment. Those parts of me (the immature child versions), never got a witness to their experience. They were never seen, felt or heard. They were angry and exhausted, and were in deep need of grieving in the presence of a witness I felt safe with.
As with all unconscious wounds, my nervous system recreated scenes to show me where my work was. Our nervous system will orient us towards people and experiences that somewhat “replicate” the original trauma that likely occurred when we were very young. The most recent scene that I’d experienced was my then-husband cheating on and suddenly leaving me. I held on to that story of being left and having to navigate life alone for years.
I got sympathy, empathy and compassion from the outside world. People began to show up to “save and rescue” me. This is what the little girl version of me needed when the original traumas took place. I wanted attention. I wanted my parents to hold me and say, “there, there sweet girl, I’m here for you.” That repair didn’t happen, so the unconscious part of me attempted to reconcile it in the external world. Alas, the reconciliation didn’t happen there either.
About this time, I was diving heavily into Depth Psychology and shadow work. I was also extremely privileged to be the witness to my clients experiencing a similar stuckness as their body attempted to renegotiate the victim stage as well.
I went into this embodiment process with my mentor. She listened to me. She challenged me to pause and feel the sensations in my body that accompanied my story of being left alone. Parts of it were gnarly and it was not a weekend journey of excavation. This was a slow and nuanced process as to ensure integration. I began feeling the newfound “adult” begin to to gradually land in my body. This was the point at which beautiful experiences began to show up in my external world.
The inner creates the outer. So many of us spend countless days, even decades, attempting to manipulate our external environment to create lasting changes. If our internal environment is full with traumas and karmic deposits, we will continue to recreate these original emotional injuries through patterns, typically in intimate relationships.
We are the most relational beings on this planet. What went missing for most of us to offer repair - when relational injuries took place - was a trusting Other to soothe us via co-regulation. The embodiment and relational aspect must be present for us to truly heal. The byproduct of this is a completion of the original trauma(s), which naturally leads to integration. For me, and for many of you, a completion and integration of the victim state allowed me to show up fully in integrated form in the world. This is how we heal this planet.
A Toxic Relationship with Dopamine
Below are a few contextual items that will assist you in getting to know Dopamine:
Dopamine is a molecule, more specifically, a hormone that is part of the catecholamine family. Catecholamines function as hormones or neurotransmitters or both. Catecholamines activate the amygdala, the “smoke detector” of the nervous system.
Like nearly every chemical in your body, especially neurotransmitters, dopamine plays multiple roles including: motivation, memory, movement, mood and attention. High or low levels are connected to Parkinson’s disease, restless legs syndrome and ADHD.
Dopamine is associated with the sympathetic part of your autonomic nervous system (ANS). In other words, it is involved in the fight or flight part of your ANS. The release of dopamine is activated when a threat is perceived.
Our ancestors needed dopamine to keep them alive. It helped them to “memorize” - via an anticipation-inducing excitatory circuitry - where food and mating was to be found. In essence, we are wired to look to the past to infer the future.
Dopamine acts on anticipation. This means that dopamine is not released when we get the desired object as is erroneously portrayed in pop culture. It is, therefore, not the pleasure hormone after all; it’s an anticipation hormone as it is released in the process of wanting the desired object.
When we get the desired object, an entire cascade of molecules are released that bring us back down from the “high” of dopamine and “down” into the here and now. This is critical for us to feel the pleasure of getting the food, of finding a mating partner, primally speaking.
The psychological equivalent of a toxic neurochemical addiction to dopamine is called Global High Intensity Disorder, also known as addiction to intensity.
Dopamine is the chemical foundation for Addiction to Intensity and Addiction to Fantasy.
Eventually, the future becomes the present. Or does it?
Being the only animals on the planet capable of overriding our biology, we have created systems within our individual bodies, and therefore, in the external world where we are disrupting inherent cycles. Disruption of these cycles - more specifically, the completion of them - is deleteriously affecting the very essence of our nature. The incompletion of the dopaminergic cycle is no exception. There’s a huge cost of doing business this way. That cost is the loss of being able to drop into the present moment, The Eternal Now in spiritual terms.
From a psychobiological and trauma perspective, an unconscious biohacking of dopamine served a survival purpose early on: it allowed us to escape our terrible reality; it gave us a temporary fantasyland with which we could get away from the physical abuse, the neglect, abandonment and enmeshment. As we’ve talked about in previous AoH content, the mechanisms that served us in surviving when we were young nearly always begin to interfere with living a peaceful life in middle age.
When as a child, we felt trapped and engulfed with our abusive reality, a rush of dopamine created the aliveness, passion, choice and pleasure that oppressive caretakers took away from us. This aliveness and passion rose when we dreamed of a world of possibility. In a cruel twist of fate, mother nature would suddenly pull us from this state when she beckoned us to complete the cycle, i.e., come down to reality; to be in the here and now. For those who did not experience relational trauma, completing this dopamanergic cycle was a pleasurable experience, for it likely meant that mom or dad were there to offer grounding, completion and repair, if needed.
But, for those who faced chronic developmental trauma, we found a magical parallel world - we could get away from the tyrant. So, of course we honed this neuropathway. We became world class dreamers, visionaries, revolutionaries and evolutionaries in our mind’s eye. The universe, however, is asking us to live in both worlds: the physical and metaphysical, the dopaminergic and the here and now. If you have unresolved developmental trauma, facing reality is unconsciously bound up with loss of choice, fear and terror. When we were younger, we attempted to avoid reality it all costs and this created a viscous and costly feedback loop. We became the rat constantly bar-pressing for more and more and more. Dopamine has an insatiable appetite.
Sadly, individuals who have created a habit of continually bar-pressing the dopamine button become so entangled with the high, that the only way to come down - to face some sort of reality - is to numb via nervous system depressants (alcohol, marijuana, Benzodiazepines). This can become a wild cycle of swinging from an extreme on one end (dopamine), to the other extreme (substance-use). In this frenetic pacing, there is no space to drop down and find intimacy with oneself. And, to answer your question, yes - this transfers over to relationship with others (especially romantic): a back and forth, cycling of breaking up, making up, intensity and fervor.
For, as we know, relationships are the mechanism nature uses to mirror to us when and how we are out of homeostatic equilibrium. All romantic relationships have an upper limit on the thrilling, dopamine-filled high that most of us experience during the “honeymoon period.” When this threshold is reached, we are asked to come to the here and now and into companionate love. For the dopamine addict, this means he must face reality, including his childhood reality. For some individuals, this is too much to bear, so they leave the relationship for another dopamine hit. This topic is a blog unto itself. More dopamine blogs to come!
Basking in Reflected Glory of Others
Basking in Reflected Glory of Others is an other-reliant (codependent) behavior where one associates with successful, celebrated, or famous others. It’s a form of self-aggrandizement: promoting oneself as being important, needed and/powerful under the auspices of another/others. This most commonly shows up as connecting oneself to a sports team, being a groupie to a musician or music group, political party or recounting/posting a chance encounter with a celebrity. It runs on a spectrum. On the extreme end, it is a form of splitting off from the core as we enmesh with others, losing a sense of Self.
In the spiritual world, it takes the form of needing to report ones’ spiritual experiences to the public: ceremonies, trainings, taking a class with a well-known teacher guru, etc., as to make oneself appear spiritually awakened, and therefore, respected. This may also take place in retrospect: repeating stories or posting memories on social media about a time in the past when one was associated with a group or an individual where they felt recognized and essential, especially within a group.
As with all codependent behaviors, this stems from a place of insecurity and/or shame. In most cases, this is due to relational trauma causing lack of intimacy with the Self. If annihilation was present in the family of origin, these behaviors can be extreme. The message to the world is: I cannot show-up alone because I am not good enough in my own being. I, therefore, need to associate with others who I believe have more power than me. The recognition I receive by associating with and being seen with others (who have more power than me) makes me temporarily feel like I belong and am accepted.
Of course, we’ve all seen the avid sports fans who wear the team jerseys or the political zealot who plants a flag or political stickers on his/her vehicle. Then there are those who have become subconsciously and in delusional fashion, enmeshed with these groups: they use the terms “my” or “mine,” as if they’ve been accepted into the group or organization. They may even become possessive or emotional around negative comments about “their” group. At this point, they may start to dress, talk and act like their object of obsession…getting tattoos of said group’s brand or name permanently inlaid. In even more extreme versions, they partake in ceremonial rituals such as being tattooed with matching emblems on identicals body parts. This, of course, takes place in nearly every gang initiation. It is a form of control. But for the initiated, he feels accepted into a group, perhaps for the first time in his life.
In our early 20’s, most of these behaviors are accepted as developmental and part of rite and ceremony: it is a time in life where we are pushing and testing our internal boundaries through our peer group. In North American culture, healthy rite and passage is profoundly missing, especially for males. When ceremonies and rituals go missing from boyhood to adult, we see a a gestalt of confusion, where the middle-aged man is behaving in similar fashion to the 20-year-olds. It’s left us with few adults - nary an edler - who are able to guide healthy rites and passages from psychological adolescence to true adulthood. As Bill Plotkin laments, “The reality is that most contemporary people are lost and languishing in a Village on the edge of a vast deserted plain on the far side of which arise the gates to Adulthood - and few of them find their way across that plain.”
The Bodhisattva
“I pictured a rainbow, you held it in your hands. I had flashes, but you saw the plan. I wandered out in the world for years, while you just stayed in your room. I was dumbfounded by truth, you cut through the lies. I saw the rain-dirty valley, you saw Brigadoon. I spoke about wings, you just flew. Yes, you climbed on the ladder with the wind in your sails. You came like a comet, blazing your trail. I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon.” - The Whole of the Moon, The Waterboys (1985).
In the most simplistic definition, a bodhisattva is an ordinary person who is able to reach nirvana/paradise but delays doing so out of compassion for others. In the Buddhist tradition, the bodhisattva vows to nurture the well-being of all. In the energy of the chakras, this transition from the self-centered will of the third chakra to the heart of inclusivity suggests a move to a wider, more spacious and human view. The vow of the bodhisattva is a vow of the heart.
Watts - someone who could live on two levels. They can dance and play but at the end of the day can look back and still know what’s really going on. They can play by the rules and still know . The understanding of Zen, the understanding of awakening, of mystical is one of the most dangerous things in the world. For a person who cannot contain it, it’s like putting a million volts through your electric shaver. If you go off in that way, that would what would be called a Pratyekabuddha, a private buddha. He is one who goes off into the transcendental world and is never seen again. He’s made a mistake from the standpoint of Buddhism because, from the standpoint of Buddhism, there is no fundamental difference between the transcendental world and this everyday world. The bodhisattva doesn’t go off into a nirvana and stay there for ever and ever, but comes back to live everyday ordinary life to help other beings to see through it too. He doesn’t come back because he feels he has some slolom duty to help mankind, and all that kind of pious camp. He comes back because he sees that the two worlds are the same. He sees all other beings a buddhas. It’s fascinating to see all other beings as enlightened. Catatonic Samadhi. The Zen buddhist idea of enlightenment is not comprehended in the idea of a trascendental, neither is it comprehended in the idea of the ordinary. Not in terms of the infinite nor the the finite. Not in terms of the eternal, not in terms of the termporal. Becasue they are all concepts. So then, it’s terribly important to see beyond ecstacy.
Nietzsche examines this in his book “Thus Spoke Zarathrustra'“ - a master grows wery of the weight of his wisdom, and descends from his mountain to everyday life below. We can either remain on our mountain or we can descend out of compassion - but first we must realize that we aren’t the doers - a master is merely a conduit of wisdom.
The Toxic Shame/Failure Loop
Toxic shame stems from an inability to extricate oneself from one’s behavior. The unconscious tape playing says, “I am my bad behavior. I am my bad decisions. I am my failures.”
Toxic Shame vs. Healthy Shame:
Healthy shame is a part of being accepted into a family unit, a tribe, etc. Our caregivers and elders correct our behavior so we don’t hurt ourselves or others. When we get corrected/disciplined, there will be a repair action afterwards: a hug, an “I love you,” and explanation for the correction. This repair from the caregiver tells the young child, “your behavior is separate from You. I see You and I see your behavior. You can be loved even in the face of making a mistake.” This child will also grow up seeing others as such. A lack of judgement and harshness on others and the world will be null to minimal.
Toxic shame occurs when our caregivers in the early years correct/discipline, us but offer little to no repair. If this happens chronically, the child internalizes the sense of wrongdoing and over time, over-couples bad behavior with his/her sense of Self. This child grows up with this unconscious state embedded into their being. Their lens through which they see the world is a feeling of being judged, criticized and attacked. Because the world is a giant funhouse of mirrors reflecting our inner states back to us, those with toxic shame will have a generalized feeling of the world being a difficult place to live in; often feeling alienated, marginalized and misunderstood. Individuals with toxic shame have difficulty apologizing, taking responsibility and especially making living amends. For doing so usually ends in an abreaction, i.e., a full-frontal bodily confrontation of the mantra: “I’m an inherently horrible person.”
Shame/Failure loop:
Individuals with toxic shame develop elaborate and often impenetrable defenses to cope with the difficultly of constantly being confronted with their shame. Their implicit mantra is: “I over commit, I over promise, I over do, I over extend myself, all in an attempt to avoid the toxic shame feeling that is eating at me.” In this attempt, they cannot live up to these grandiose commitments they made, and so they end up “failing.” This lands them in a hopeless and despair state. Their only recourse (tool) in their toolbox is to prove to themselves and the world that “I’m not a failure.” But, ultimately they end up repeating the cycle by over-committing again.
Intimacy and Shame:
Those with toxic shame have a near-constant lived experience of self-intimacy being glued to feelings of self-blame, self-doubt, lack of self-worth and lack of confidence in their abilities. In order to cope, they often split off from the core of who they are by creating different versions of themselves: personas and personalities. When they enter into an intimate relationship, especially romantic, it mirrors not only the shame back at them, but also the caricature personas/personalities they’ve created.
The Other will be asking for intimacy, but this too becomes a highly charged experience as intimacy is inexorable from shame. So, even a relationship with a secure Other will bring about the shame/failure loop. It is almost impossible to have a deep and meaningful relationship with someone who has unprocessed toxic shame; it will feel like walking on eggshells for the Other. In fact, when intervention is finally sought or they bottom out in life, toxically-shamed individuals often report feeling like a fraud. This is why those with toxic shame often have difficulty keeping or have tumultuous relationships with others.
Psychobiological Explanation:
My personal description of the felt-sense of having the toxic-shame-button pushed is this: being on a roller coaster inside of a tornado. This is due to the body needing a completion of all 3 survival responses (fight, flight and freeze) at the same time. In a meager attempt, a toxically-shamed person might do the following:
-Fight: I blame and/or villainize others, the government, politics, etc. Splitting off in rage episode is also common.
-Flight: I cut-off from the so called threat by literally leaving the situation, leaving the job, leaving my partner, leaving the city/country, etc.
-Freeze: I use intellect/stories, substance, fantasy/dreamland, enmesh with others, social media, and other addictions to numb.
It is worth noting that the intensity of the energy caused by the locked-in fight and flight responses is so intense that freeze is the mechanism that comes in to stop the person from fully engaging in the behaviors. This is why at the heart of most addictions - especially smoked/injected substances - is unprocessed toxic shame.
Psychobiological Intervention:
It is critical that a third party be utilized if toxic shame presents in a romantic relationship. The level of activating energy within is too much for even two people to manage. A professional who has deep knowledge about the nervous system, somatic integration, shame, titration and pendulation is critical. Because it is an implicitly stored experience, the most important aspect will be teaching the client how to access, track and absorb his/her somatic experiences. Having an embodied experience might be brand new territory for those with unprocessed toxic shame as they’ve been unconsciously avoiding the place where the pain is stored their entire life. It is therefore - and also highly critical - that the practitioner has a psychobiological and clinical understanding and appreciation of safety and slowness. Through these techniques, the practitioner will softly challenge the defenses created to avoid the shame experience, allowing the client to feel a sense of empowerment and agency.
Please hear this: You cannot process toxic shame on your own. You cannot read books to recover your true Self. If you’re attempting to cope with life with unprocessed shame, it is likely you have an inherent distrust of others, especially if humiliation was a part of shaming from caretakers. There are professionals out there who understand this as they’ve been through the recovery path themselves. Processing shame and calling back and integrating those parts of you that you had to hide to survive can change your life entirely - especially your relationship to your Self. It might be the most spiritual endeavor you’ll ever embark on!