Client forms/worksheets/information on the following can be found below, as well as links to external resources that might be helpful:
- Nervous System Work
- Parts Work
- Understanding the physiology of trauma
- Yoga
- Herbalism
- External links, books, etc.
Nervous System Work
These are forms we will work through *together* to help you get more of a sense of your nervous system and how to be your own healer.
We will also learn about common physiological PTSD symptoms: Common Traumatic Body and Emotional Memories. Understanding and learning about the physiology of the body and it’s responses can normalise, de-pathologize and break the trance of shame, hopelessness and confusion around people’s experience with PTSD, and nourish and foster empowerment, possibility and compassion.
We will note your patterns of hyper and hypo arousal together so that we can better track where you are and also seek to support your system into more comfort. As you learn to do this with me, you can extend this practice in to your life, supporting regulation and ease in different settings: relational, vocational, recreational, spiritual, etc.
Tracking sensations and thoughts and behaviours that happen in these different states helps us know where we are physiologically (meaning that those thoughts that are shame or fear based might not have so much buy in) and what interventions would be useful (as in if we are entering shut down dorsal states, sitting watching TV and eating might not be the best medicine for our system). Nervous system states are explored with a bit more depth in this paper: Mapping nervous system states -and overview.
For a sheet to track this : Your Autonomic Arousal Patterns (Oden, Minton &Pain, 2006)
Once we have mapped your system, we can get a bit more detailed, so that we can identify nuances when you are just entering in to the state: Nervous system state lines
Polyvagal Theory and understanding ways to support vagal tone can also be used as a resource.
“Sifting” is something we can constantly be building on an integrating into our lives. In some ways it actually is a scientific intervention that mirrors time old practices found in religious, spiritual and other traditions, such as mantra repetition, prayer, and focussing the mind upon the Divine or Service or a spiritual quality one is seeking to cultivate. It also draws to mind practices of herbalism and animism where one is constantly drawing from and resourced by a relationship with the ever present elementals. I think it is important as these new theories and perhaps more dry scientific or therapeutic interventions come out to remember that frequently these are ancient practices and traditions given a new name and propped up by research that actually loose some of their richness and healing capacity as stand alones. ‘Ultimately what works for you, works! We don’t need a scientist to run data to validate that.
That said, I use many current somatic and nervous system based interventions to help a client relearn and embody resourced nervous system states including SIFTING partly because people feel comforted by data and research 😉
On going sustained effort is needed to reteach the nervous system its natural motility. Body Low Slow Loop, devised by John Chitty, is an effective tool….Though we can frequently find ourselves practicing the Bossy and Low alternating Loop 😉 I recommend the former rather than the latter ;). A recording can be found on the Resources Page. Creating pendulation through orientation to the external environment rather than internal cues is also useful: ORIENTATION PRACTICE- sandwich
Janina Fischer has and article adressing addictions and trauma recovery from a trauma informed perspective: https://janinafisher.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/addictions.pdf
Parts work
Through all of these processes we are seeking to create and deepen into stabilisation and a sense of capacity or possibility to navigate, organise and integrate our internal states -calming the body mind so that we can feel aligned with a greater sense of Self or Wholeness. Often with trauma, parts split off at different ages, to hold the traumatic experience and memory so we can continue on without ‘too much disruption’. With trauma, therefore, we often see very conflicting and disorganised inner feelings, thoughts and impulses and a lot of distress and overwhelm without an inner anchored state of well being that can coordinate and tend to these parts. A sense of self that is independent from and unblended from trauma states needs to be re-found so that we can start to navigate our internal and external lives with more safety and ease. From this ground we can open our heart to integrate wounded, abandoned or disowned parts of our psyche: Therapy; Family of Self.
I deeply love parts work – whilst also maintaining a bias towards deepening into the experience of wholeness, and inner intelligence in which the being is unified internally but also with something greater than the individual self – whatever one understands that to be. I love the way humans have always used the world of inner sight and imagination and outer form, as well as spiritual traditions and the natural world to create play, meaning and resource in their lives. Developing resourced parts through inner child and parent work, working with inner and outer guides: plant, animal, human, spiritual; working with archetypes and spiritual imagery- are all ways that we can create more resiliancy in our systems. Wading around in our collective or individual weakness without a life raft is not going to get us to dry land. It is an act of courage to engage with change – engage with being more than we have experienced ourselves to be. Tapping into Resourced Parts
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson.
Yoga: Yamas and Niyamas. (Currently being edited).
Herbalism.(Currently being edited).
External links and Resources:
Janina Fischer has a beautiful page of book recommendations and also a generous selection of articles that she has written available for free:
https://janinafisher.com/resources
John and Anna Chitty have a great reference library: https://www.energyschool.com/reference-library-1; and papers and resources here: https://www.energyschool.com/articles-and-handouts
Deb Dana (http://www.debdanalcsw.com) has a lovely website with some talks on it pertaining to her work with trauma and polyvagal theory/ therapy.
Deidre Fay (https://dfay.com) has lots of information and online courses, including the Becoming Safely Embodied Course. She has written Attachment-Based Yoga and Meditation for Trauma Recovery, a book I recommend that blends trauma modalities, IFS and Yoga through her twenty years of clinical experience.
Stella Resnick: Clinical Psychologist, Gestalt therapist, certified sex therapist and developer of the Embodied Relational Sex Therapy (ERST) process and therapist training. This holistic approach recognizes sexual health, and capacity for pleasure and play as intertwined with self-development throughout life, and as basic elements in emotional, physical, and relational health and happiness.
Doctor Joy De Gruy‘s work on Post traumatic Slavery Syndrome and the shaping of cultures through inherited unaddressed trauma: https://www.joydegruy.com/
Caroline Myss is a five-time New York Times bestselling author and internationally renowned speaker in the fields of human consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, health, energy medicine, and the science of medical intuition. Her website contains a lot of free and purchasable resources, courses, etc.
For more information about cranial sacral therapy: https://www.craniosacral.co.uk/
https://www.craniosacralpodcast.com/
Movement Practices: Yoga, Chi gong, Tai chi, Body mind centring, Continuum, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, Pilates, Martial Arts, Dance
Online Meditation Communities for instance Insight Timer for online recordings and courses, and Tich Nhat Than and Plum Village Community Online with regular dharma talks and sitting and walking meditation.
There are so many more books and resources, I did at one point compile a VERY CRAZY list but essentially there is an abundance of spiritual teachers, therapists, environmentalists, yogis, herbalists, cake and candlestick makers ;)!, socially engaged activists and so on whose work is just so beautiful and I trust that we will be drawn to what we need so I am going to stop here!
BLOG
Yep -have no idea how to create an actual blog – it looks awkward because it is awkward ! 😉
December 2017.
Blocks to healing: Over attachment to “health”
Taking care of the whole through the nervous system.
