Full Circle Fridays|Week 16: Psychosomatic

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

We’ve recently talk about the neurobiological problems caused by and/or worsened by trauma. Today, I’m choosing the sensitive topic of psychosomatic after effects. The word psychosomatic literally means an illness or condition caused by or aggravated by a mental component, such as stress and conflict (and of course trauma). This is talking about the interaction of the mind and body, not just that your mind is “making something up”. These are actual ailments, real pains, true sicknesses, and genuine symptoms that your body is experiencing. This is an unconscious process — not something that people are just imagining or pretending that they are happening to them. This is important to stress because, for way too long, the medical community has dismissed people with “imaginary issues” when no cause can be found, so they send them away and with no relief found. Luckily, modern science is evolving, and, in this instance, that’s a really good thing.

Someone with a psychosomatic illness or disorder can’t find a physical or scientific reason for their condition. That’s because the roots aren’t a germ or bacteria or virus — they are psychological. All the while real — just a different cause. On the more mainstream side of things, we know, for instance, that high stress can cause hypertension. Science has now confirmed that a lifetime of high stress or worry can cause heart related diseases and conditions. We can know that short-term difficulties like the loss of a job, grief, or sleepless nights with a newborn can change moods, eating habits, sleep routines, and add physical symptoms like heart palpitations, headaches, or GI distress. All of these are easy ways to explain psychosomatic issues.

For trauma survivors, most of us will find some sort of physiological condition linked to our trauma. This is nothing to be afraid of or ashamed about. This is just the nature of the human body. It was not built to withstand long-term trauma, ongoing neglect, chronic stress, childhood abuse, etc. One way of studying this further is to take a look at the ACE study and see the jarring results of what developmental trauma’s impact is on a survivor’s long-term health as well as the increased risk for many life-shortening diseases. Indeed, the ACE study found that trauma survivors can experience accelerated biological aging due to shorter telomere length!

Here’s another example of how this may play out. Like we talked about in Basics earlier this year, the normal life functioning things like sleeping, eating, physical activity, social interactions, and hygiene are all basic life needs — but are often found to have areas of deficits in trauma survivors. All of those basic functions of healthy lifestyle are necessary to keep the system up and running as well as possible. So let’s say that a trauma survivor may endure a sleep disorder, improper sleep, or truncated sleep due to night terrors. We know from science that sleep disorders are a huge cause of concern with our body’s circulation, capacity, and output of energy. From there, this survivor may be too tired to exercise and often has headaches from lack of good sleep, so the trauma survivor is now at higher risk for heart complications. If they are always tired, which causes cravings of sugars and high glucose index foods such as complex carbs, they may be struggling with their weight. And we all know how damaging that can be to one’s physical health. All of this is just stemming from night terrors due to trauma which is now disrupting their sleep and then in turn controlling all these other functions of the body. To say that trauma survivors have these psychosomatic conditions is very clear to see, and to see why.

That’s why there is no shame here because the trauma was not your fault; therefore, your somatic responses to the underlying trauma and stress as are also explainable. This is also not the end of the story. In addressing the trauma, processing through it, and finding healing, this could restore a peaceful night sleep to the above trauma survivor and start a reversal on all the other associated problems and health conditions.

These types of episodes are difficult to share because they sound so daunting. However, as you know by now, I believe everyone can find healing. The road to the recovery of your trauma will lead you to improved mental health, which in turn brings you to enhanced physical health by way of stress-reduction therapies, rebuilt relationships, creating healthy boundaries, better life functioning basics, finding time for play and creativity, and a cleaner overall bill of health and wellness. No, trauma recovery will not cure you of all your diseases. However, you may be surprised to find that some of your chronic conditions (some even from childhood) may begin to dissipate and diminish in the light of greater mental health status, finding peace, reconnecting to your body, and healing your inner child. As always, I’d be more than honored to come along for the ride as you seek a new way of life on this healing journey. Please reach out if this episode was helpful for you, tough for you, or if you have any questions.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 9: I.F.S.

Author Note* If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Straight from the IFS Institute itself, “Internal Family Systems is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy… IFS is a movement. A new, empowering paradigm for understanding and harmonizing the mind and, thereby, larger human systems. One that can help people heal and helps the world become a more compassionate place.” IFS was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz just a few decades ago. In that short time, this model of therapy has revolutionized the lives of many trauma survivors. The basis of this model comes from the belief that all parts within each human have a positive purpose and intention, no matter the way they present to the human and the world as a whole. Before we go any further, let’s discuss what I just meant by “all the parts”.

Firstly, IFS identifies the Self as a whole, healed person. Your true Self, that authentic Self that I’m always going on and on about. The Self is not the watcher or observer the way that some meditation-based models explain it. The Self is the one who the watcher watches. The Self, the Seat of Consciousness as you may know it, is you. You can know you are operating as a Self-led being when you are experiencing the 8 C’s that IFS uses: confidence, calmness, creativity, clarity, curiosity, courage, compassion, and connectedness. When those 8 C’s are harmonized and working together, you would say you in your true Self. This is often described as feeling “Centered” — which is probably one of my favorite C words.

Next, the parts come into play. The IFS model is often called “parts work” when you are doing therapy literally working with your parts.

The Exiles are the (often) child-aged parts that have been isolated from the system due to trauma or abuse, which are shunned, shamed, feared, or guilted into exile. Exiles are the parts that are least heard, but that are one who want to be heard the most. Because Exiles are traumatized and often silenced or invisible, they can be hard to find. Once found, they can be hard to communicate with. However, the Exiles are what IFS intends to root out, listen to, and heal.

The Protectors jobs are all attempts to keep the Exiles from being seen because they hold so much shame and fear and guilt so that the Protectors feel they are a threat to entire system. The Protectors come in two forms: Managers and Firefighters.

Managers are a proactive role — the ones who like to keep the system in order. They are protecting the system from ever getting out of control — at work, in relationships, in stressful situations, anywhere. The Managers’ jobs are to keep the system from being hurt, rejected, or shamed anymore. This can come in the form of caretaking, overworking, drill sergeant like task management, overachieving, overanalyzing, strict preparing, constant planning, worrying, complicating relationships and events with overthinking, and drastic protective measures, etc.

Firefighters are the reactive parts that, when an Exile gets triggered, it lashes out in an attempt to put out the fire of feeling the Exile’s (often strong) emotions. This looks like self-destructive behavior, risky choices, self-harm, suicidal ideation, binge-eating, drug and alcohol addictions, any number of numbing behaviors, and more.

Both protectors are working to control the system from the Exile being activated, they just approach with different techniques. Both protectors believe they are doing what they can to attend to the Exiles, and to keep the system safe and healthy. This is why IFS believes that all parts of a person are intended for good, no matter the outcome of their protective style. Even the parts that seem self-punitive are honestly self-protecting. This shift in thinking allows you to befriend your parts, hear them, be gentle and kind to them, and work toward a resolution instead of striving to just “stop doing the negative behavior” associated with each part’s role.

This is why I personally believe that all healing is always possible because the system is always trying to keep the true Self functioning. Along the way, you have learned coping skills — some protectors that have been around since the very first instance of abuse as a child — to keep you safe. They did serve a purpose. As a child, if you couldn’t leave your dysfunctional home and the only solace you found was in binge-eating junk food, that mechanism allowed you to survive in the home until you could leave. That’s why it’s no longer serving you now, why you can appreciate its role in your life then, and why you can heal that part (the binge-eating protector AND the exiled scared inner child who used the binge-eating to survive). You can indeed heal through inner child work, re-parent yourself now, heal your exiles (which are often very young versions of yourself), and make a full circle recovery back to your true, centered Self. IFS can help you rebuild your intrapersonal bridge within yourself, repair your self-trust, and reunite with your self-abandoned dreams and goals like we spoke on a few weeks ago.

Recently, I recommended Dr. Schwartz’ book No Bad Parts in my episode called ‘Books’. I personally have been self-studying parts work for a few years and have entered into the self-exploration of my own inner child healing since the Pandemic. I am working on joining an IFS circle training this spring. I am not trained as IFS-certified, however, I do use a lot of this language in my coaching sessions. If you had developmental trauma, IFS is impactful and healing down to the roots of your original traumas.

Because I’m not clinically trained in this modality, I’m going to encourage you on a couple of things. Firstly, read No Bad Parts to get a better grasp beyond this quick synopsis that I just shared with you. This was a very incomplete quick overview. Keep learning and even try some of the self-therapy exercises in the book.

Next, think about whether you are at a place in your trauma recovery journey where you believe IFS Therapy would be a good step for you. Whatever you decide, coaching is always an option for you. However, I don’t plug IFS just to plug my own coaching services. I honestly want you to find healing, and I know the IFS model process can help. Please send me a message on the “Connect” tab of my website if you are not able to find an IFS therapist, are placed on long wait lists, or are struggling to know if IFS is right for you. I will help you with any resources I can offer. Even being coached with this type of language while I work on my own training can be helpful for you especially if you have read Schwartz’ books on this topic and are able to flesh out the basic concepts. I can help you go a bit deeper while you wait for a trained therapist’s help as well. Healing the inner child is work that will literally change the trajectory of your adulthood from here on out. I look forward to walking this journey with you.

Full Circle Fridays|Week 4: Dance Therapy

*Author Note* If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Like we heard on this week’s Mindful Monday, trauma often squelches our soul of things like creativity, childhood dreams, and the ability to visualize wants and desires at all.  Then on Wellspring Wednesday, we dove into what Developmental Trauma is (trauma during the first few childhood years of life) and how it trains your brain with all kinds of coping skills that were useful as an abused child but are maladaptive mechanisms now as adults.  Often times, these two are linked. 

If you used to love to paint, ride horses, play pretend with your dolls, run around on the playground, or make puppet shows, you may be also able to remember when those things (or at least the desire to do them) came to a halt.  This may come back to the age when your trauma started.  A “timeline trauma” as I call it, may have cut your life into two parts – before and after trauma.  If you were a child full of hopes and dreams and play and fun, then something happened like a parent died or you were sexually abused, you may have collapsed inside yourself.  All the sudden, you didn’t have room for play because your brain was trying to make sense of what had happened. 

If you grew up with Attachment or Developmental trauma, the joy that kids of what we call “good enough” homes had may have never been afforded to you.  You may have grown up afraid of playing, letting loose, running around carefree at the playground, talking to kids you just met, laughing loudly.  Your trauma brain may have been always trying to keep you small in an effort to keep you from being in harm’s way.  Alternately, your emotions may not have been allowed to develop in your childhood trauma.  Maybe you never realized you wanted to play or run or be loud or jump on trampolines because you were busy being hypervigilant to the anger levels in the home to try to calm any violence about to break out.  Maybe your longing wasn’t to run and play because it was busy knowing when to run and hide.  Maybe you couldn’t ever imagine leaving the home to ride bikes with the neighborhood kids because you had to make sure your alcoholic mother was safe. 

Now you are here, as an adult, out of your childhood trauma, yet you still have those sensations in your body – that being loud, having fun, being silly, falling down or messing up, running free, or jumping in a pile of leaves isn’t safe.  Or maybe you feel out of your depth because you actually never were able to do those things. 

So the resource today I want to share is an option – and maybe just the type of thing you need to jump start your inner child healing.  Dance Therapy (also called Dance Movement Therapy or DMT) is a therapeutic modality that activates kinesthetic, rational, musical, and emotional brain functions.  This type of movement means you are using your body, mind, and emotions all together to accomplish something fun and also healing.

The ability to express yourself, as a trauma survivor, can often be awkward if not completely painful.  We also know that many of us struggle with the mind/body connection due to our trauma.  Not only is dance good exercise (which releases all those happy hormones), but also a release of energy can help you sleep better, regulate your heart rate variability, and balance your emotions.  What’s different about dance therapy is that a DMT therapist will be walking you through the movements (that can be traditional dance to yoga flows) with their designed instructions.  This uses fluid movements to actually allow your emotions to speak through your body, flowing out of your while expressing your inner being through your physical vessel.  The therapeutic side of it comes from the DMT therapist as they read your body language and the emotions that are coming out of you.  The therapist may mirror your movements, give you props to use to express yourself when words aren’t available, cue creative visualizations, offer you kind suggestions to move your emotions through, and keep you in a safe environment so you can feel the freedom to move.  The non-verbal communication with your DMT therapist builds trust and security. 

This is not a dance class.  Although in your healing journey - dancing, karaoke, ice skating with friends, skydiving – those are all great things, but this is actual therapy.  It’s a modality, a resource beyond talk therapy.  Not that you can’t find healing going out dancing with a lover – but this is dancing with a therapist to work on self-expression, emotional regulation, releasing stress and pain from your body caused by your trauma, “unstucking” things that are trapped inside where words aren’t there. 

Motion is very rehabilitative, and a creative expression of yourself is powerful to realign your mind, body, and soul.  Kinetic therapies integrate your authentic self as you can come back to the you who was meant to be before any trauma wounded your inner child.  This also is a self-reflective therapy as you work in a space where maybe you feel self-conscious or have held onto a stoic rigidity in order to protect yourself.  Dance therapy may teach you to trust yourself and uncover deeper self-awareness. 

I invite you to try this sometime.  Simply search for DMT facilities in your area.  If you have more questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you.  Just click on my website in the show notes and select the “Connect” tab to shoot me a message.   Let’s try something new.  Let’s let our inner child dance.