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Often when people hear about people with addiction, or in recovery, they are most curious as to what they are in recovery from; rather than the what happened to the individual that required an addiction to survive.

Whatever someone’s drug, process, substance of choice, is to a certain extent irrelevant and even at times a distracting smokescreen. (Though substances and behaviours provide useful diagnostic information as to the underlying nervous system states that this self medication is trying to manage). Addiction is a symptom that points to trauma, and is in fact only one of the many symptoms. Fighting with addiction will most often not heal the underlying cause. Addicts are attempting to out-source an inner sense of self, being, love, peace, safety, security, regulation, resilience, connection, self esteem and ease, and need to be reconnected to a stable and reliable experience of that.

Addiction is a widespread epidemic…The frame and environment our children develop within: our social, educational, familial, economic structures – the values they are based upon – our management of our own experience and thought process and way of experiencing (and responsibility or lack thereof for) the self and the way we are in relationship to each other and children is often challenging on an emotional and physiological level and suboptimal for human development and secure attachment, sense of self and self regulation. Consequentially addiction is becoming more and more prevalent. Trauma has become institutionalised – has woven itself into our systems and identities, a heritage passed on through thousands of years of unaddressed inter personal and systemic covert and overt abuse and neglect.I believe for this very reason, the recovery and healing of self as one recovers from addiction needs to feed back into the collective, addressing and reforming systems to become more competent in supporting the healthy development of human beings in order to address the disconnect that carries on contributing to this widespread epidemic. Addiction is a wide spread social condition, and needs to be addressed on a collective, structural level, as well as an individual one.

But for the individual suffering from addiction, individual, let alone collective healing, seems nothing short of a miracle. You will notice that for yourself, or for those you are close to that have struggled with addiction, that dramatic health consequences, unmanageable living conditions and life circumstances, broken relationships, loss of home or work, a set of ideals, values and even a strong desire, or desperate need to quit can have little effect.

Addiction’s roots were set down long before the cycle of addiction and compulsion that arose and became visible. The roots of addiction are unfeelable, unbearable feelings and experiences that are, in the moment they happened, too much for the system, and the individual needs to find a way to seperate: compartmentalise, distance and escape these experiences and the subsequent sense of self and other. Addiction arose as a result of the need for a solution.

Addiction happened when we could not find safe and regulating connection or manage to regulate due to abnormal circumstances –  when our nervous systems got overwhelmed and fixated, our heart shut down, we disconnected from ourselves and the world – human and natural and spiritual – and in order to carry on living we had to outsource a sense of being alive. We shut ourselves off from our real selves and real life and needed something artificial to take its place, to get to the point when we could address the shut down.

When viewed in this way, addiction can be a bridge to life, as well as a bridge to death. When looked at as a bridge to life, addiction can act as a time capsule that held you safely away what would break you until you had enough resources to unpack it – to be brought out of your capsule, move through what was stored away and release it.

Your addiction has helped you get to this point, helped you manage and organise feelings and experiences that you did not have the resources to live through.

BCST works with a deep and unwavering appreciation of the intelligence of the system, and I have found that working this way with addiction reduces the shame and self hate that can keep us blocked and unable to let go of addiction as ‘resource’ and find other resources that support us better.

I am not underling the seriousness of addiction by offering the possibility of care and appreciation towards addicted parts of ourselves. Addiction was something that at first we maybe thought we had control over, or weren’t even conscious we were stepping in to. Maybe at first it was a set of tools we thought we owned, but came to own us…. came to control every aspect of our lives: body, mind, actions.And when we leave ourselves in addiction, essentially we are leaving you’re traumatized parts of us not only running our adult lives, but these younger traumatized parts are left still unregulated, terrified, disconnected, overwhelmed, unloved and uncontained.

Appreciating the great intelligence and resilience, courage and creativity and the suffering these parts have been through does not mean we support and facilitate the way THEY HAD TO originally take care of themselves as a viable solution for our present adult life, where we have alternative choices.

Addiction is a tortured state of self: the world is a painful place to live in, relationships are painful, feelings are painful, how we experience and see ourselves is painful. We need a remedy, and we find one: in alcohol, drugs, relationships, sex, disordered eating, shopping, gambling, violence, and so on.

The great news is that that pain can be your medicine, the burning fuel that creates a direction and a path for you to walk, that gives you the energy and desire for each step, as you move deeper and deeper into a reconnection with all that you are and learn to hold it with love.

Recovery means recovering our responsibility for our lives, recovering a sense of self that is true, not blended with an individual and collective smog of trauma, or saturated in socialized norms of guilt, blame, self hate, etc.  Recovery means thinking of ourselves less and others more, but just thinking less in general! Escaping the turret of the mind and living, being in sensation and connection. Recovery means freedom: freedom to choose again. Recovery means reconnection: reconnection to the source of our being that can power, guide, energise us and love us through our daily lives. Recovery is surrender, surrendering into ease, grace, into finally doing for ourselves what we have spent our lives trying to get others, substances, situations to do for us: to be there, constant, permanent, supporting, kind attentive, caring for and responding to how we feel.

Recovery is learning how to reduce the demands and expectations of self, letting the Breath of Life -a Higher Power – God – Life – Love – whatever we know it as – guide and inform and live through us. Recovery is relearning who we are. We are not what happened to us, nor how we coped with it.

There are many recovery paths – whether it is through yoga, through community, a 12 step program: but Recovery is an experience once again of the interconnected, larger self: the self that is love, that is truth, that is free, that is whole.

Our hearts and sense of self expands. We are not limited independent creatures –we inter-be, inter-are. Creating happiness for others creates happiness for us. We depend, we need others: the elements that make up the natural world, our communities of beings.

Addiction recovery can then feed back into rebuilding communities and cultures that can address and heal their collective trauma and that as a consequence create structures and models -of education, work, relational and communial and so on, that really work for us all.

Once we recognise the impact of neglect, abuse, mis-atunement, poverty, etc. on ourselves and recover our health, we might be moved into greater social activism, with more awareness to see the institutionalised racism, sexism and discrimination, as well as current socialised practices which create distress for our fellow human beings and the planet. The fate of factory farmed animals, of polluted waters and dieing sea life, of on-going sexism, child abuse, homophobia and racism – become our pain – a pain that we can be an empowered part of building a solution for. Our individual healing extends into societal healing. Our addiction served us to keep our pulse going through what was unbearable. It serves us as a doorway through to our deeper self and connection to spirit. And it further serves us as a hand reaching out, helping to create kinder conditions for all beings.

Just as a little one needs moment to moment presence, understanding, care, nourishment, soothing, connection and firm limits (amongst many other things!) to support it’s health and well-being, so do our bodies and nervous systems.

To support, care for and nourish our resilience we can learn to:

• °Identity different nervous system states : start to learn and understand the language of the body and ANS and how it also influences how we both perceive others and project ourselves to them; and the arising reinforcing cycles of either regulation, wellbeing and connection – or dys-regulation, rupture and disconnection.
• °Become familiar with nervous system ‘first aid’ and antidotes that work for us.
• °Identify triggers that contribute to dysregulation : Identify sources that push us out of ‘challenge that creates growth’ and instead into ‘challenge that creates fragmentation and dysregulation’.
• °With the awareness of identified inner and external cues that create and disrupt regulation; set in place both resources and boundaries that preemptively support and align our lives with regulation, growth and well being.
• °Prime the system for connection and well-being through certain practices in the morning.
• °Integrate and increase daily practices (breath, mindfulness, movement, social, nature, etc) throughout the day that enlarge our window of tolerance and anchor us in resilience.

It is important that we get familiar with ourselves, experiment, and find out what is true for us, stripped of judgements of good or bad. We are all unique and need different ‘food’ and conditions in order to bloom.

I find the practice of seeing and tending to one’s Nervous System as a ‘being’ in its own right useful. Sometimes it feels easier to be kind and care for oneself when it is conceptualised as caring for one’s nervous system, like a sweet, adorable (and sometimes wild) little creature. It also helps to give a clear, solid and constructive direction when in overwhelm and pulled on by emotion, content (story), circumstance to go further off balance. Simply :’what would bring my NS into more regulation in this moment?’

Things can get really simple when the  next clear right step is to just take a moment, to pause, breathe and feel the sensations in our toes and feet, let the breath connect us to our hearts and regulate this little inner being that happens to go by the rather fancy name of Nervous System.

Rather than an urgency to ‘fix’, change, create, plan or right the wrongs of the world, ourselves, others or our lives ( often just a symptom of dys-regulation) we can instead lower ourselves into the lovely relaxed engaged presence of our inner bubble bath!…. our inner resilience and regulation – and receive and offer to the world from this place.

To find out more about nervous system regulation and identifying dysregulation, please book a free initial consultation to see if regulation focussed coaching would be helpful.

From my little animal to yours with love,

Elise

Expanding our awareness – which often fixates upon painful sensations, emotions or thought – to include the health of the system, is very curative.  Whilst this is pointing out the obvious, time and again, in my own process and those of others I see that we seem to find ourselves wading deeper into the quagmire of suffering, moving further and further away from shore whilst we wave our arms around, act confused that we are sinking and shout for help. We go around with sensory blinders on, ignoring our own signals of when to slow down, to pause, to redirect. We live in a trance of habit, and don’t think to question the logic of wading out into an Ocean of sharks to ‘enjoy’ a quiet morning’s swim and then wonder why we keep getting chewed up.

Wading further into dysregulation or a problem in order to fix it is a bit like this. Sometimes I think we think that we can fix a problem by focussing on it, rather than letting our awareness orient to health. I’m not for spiritual bypassing, but I am for bypassing ingrained habits of response that no longer support growth and connection.

The alternative? Focus on the health, on joy, on acceptance and compassion. Let the mind rest. It’s actually not it’s job to work so much out. Resource yourself so that you can feel both a wider field that can hold pain or uncertainty but not become it. Freedom from fixation. It is like adding more water to a concentrate –it disperses and the more water you add, the more it disperses, and the more flow you experience.

Letting go of fixation means committing to trusting in health, rather than our fear and control, to manage, direct and run our lives.We can let go of focusing on the dysregulation and constantly trying to manage and cure it, and instead commit to regulating, bringing awareness to sensation, trusting the solutions will arise from the greater intelligence that animates and breathes all beings and posing the question –

-what in all of this lets me know that I am ok? – and then…… how do i sense this, experience this sense of okay? …. and allow it to expand….

thereby orienting to resource and health and widening the field of awareness..in doing so increasing the possibilities and support available in any given moment.

Fixation –in any state –even pleasure –can bring dis-ease. How do we get out of it when it is well established and holding us in its grip like I held a chocolate bar as a 6 year old?!

In these moments, we can recognize and name the fixation, breath, see if we can step back even a centimeter, appreciate ourselves and it, and gently open our awareness to pendulate between the fixed sensation and other more neutral or resourced areas of our body such as the feet, finger tips or desired emotional state, or even our memory of ourselves before the dis-ease/ fixation. I have several free recordings on my site which can help you with this.

This movement between the fixation and resource/flow/neutral state can free and open our nervous system and therefore awareness and open us to the creative intelligence that can support us in maintaining our flow and ability to keep digesting life. Practices such as body low sloop loop and other nervous system regulating practices can be practiced until the nervous system naturally orients to regulating this way.

As R. Stone said” Running water clears itself.”

Keep on flowing,

With love,

Elise

As both practitioners and clients, an over rigid goal of ‘healing’ can obstruct a deep experience of presence, connection, soul-fullness and health. If we are driven to practice a very disciplined healing regimen, motivated and maintained through fear (and fear of our pain), I am not sure if a deeply holistic experience of health, peace and happiness is possible.

The external control found through a disciplined healing regimen and the potential benefits of a strict diet and intentional lifestyle practices is no substitute for a deep sense of belonging within oneself. On the surface it can look excellent, but inside we might still feel lonely, alienated, filled with self hatred or just a background feeling of lack or discontentment and not be getting the results that we would like. When fear and results driven, there will always be an element of rigidity and control, and a disconnection from really being with the self, that will prohibit a deeper opening and blossoming of the individual, and block us from a feeling of ease within our circumstances: whether they are painful or not.

Whilst I strongly believe in cultivating healthy living as a way to know ourselves and our world more intimately and flourish, I also believe that true healing lies more in building resources and the capacity to be with what is – rather than a rigid regime or clinging to a fantasy of self or health (that might exist today or could be created for the future) that will protect us from suffering. In leaning in to discomfort and being ok with pain, discomfort, grief, heart ache, injury we can find freedom.

In fact we can deprive ourselves of the huge learning opportunity to develop compassion, surrender, humility and acceptance by fixating on getting rid of the conditions through which life elicits and teaches these qualities (again, not that i am advocating for being a passive victim of circumstance, just to not be a victim of control and fear either!).

In effect, sometimes in our quest for healing, we can perpetuate the internal relational disconnect that might have contributed to the physical imbalance or dis-ease. We abandon ourselves as we are _Here – Now – scrambling to try to attain “health” or “wholeness”. Essentially disowning or avoiding the parts of ourselves that feel “inconvenient” that so quickly get left behind, only to control our lives from our unconscious choices and views and often resurface sideways some time later.  

Surrendering to and acceptance where we are right now, especially if that is with sickness, intense emotional pain, physical limitations and handicaps is a hard and sometimes painful process. But resisting what and where we are and what life is, is far more painful, gradually closing our hearts, rendering ourselves ineffective, brittle, incapable of change and cutting off our connection to the present moment, ourselves and each other. In this state our pain feels unbearable.

We can get so attached to our idea of who we are and how we want to operate in the world and what we want to experience (socially, vocationally, etc), that often the body or mind, manifesting with symptoms that do not support our vision or ideas (with a capitalist focus on DO rather than BE) , are turned upon with aggression when they do not conform. Making our salvation an external that we have no control over: the physical body, rather than the internal, which we can learn to control: creates fear, suffering and disconnect. Even when we are healthy and well there is an element of fear: we know what is keeping our equilibrium is fragile, vulnerable, impermanent and subject to change and chance, and therefore not a stable foundation to build happiness, peace or security upon.

When we have made our salvation into fixed and perfect health – rather than a reverence for the greater intelligence underlying all things- a gentle curiosity as to the roots of symptoms – we have built a house on sand. We can easily fall pray to the idea that we know what we need and what would make us happy in order to achieve and maintain this impossible goal. (From this place I see people come up with all sorts of completley insane and illogical  -but radically creative – methods to procure perfect health that often just make them obssesed or unwell!) In a sense we can operate unconsciously as mini gods or dictators wilfully attempting to control reality –ourselves –others –our bodies  – past future, ad infinitum. Or, we can relax and let go, receive with gratitude, learn and grow.

One position is fear based and creates suffering through its fixation on avoidance of suffering. And one is grounded in connection and reality based, and has more openness, possibility and kindness inherent within it: it allows us to experience and dance with life: to relate to life: to love life, to love ourselves, no matter what we are experiencing.

When we cultivate and bring this attitude to our lives and decisions, including maintaining and creating health, life just feels more fun. 

 

Please reach out to me with any comments or questions,

 

With love,

Elise

 

 

Taking care of our mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing is a daily practice. Therapy can support a client into living and practicing somatic principles of health and wellbeing a part of their daily life, rather than in a weekly or bi monthly session. We don’t just brush our teeth the day we go to the dentist – and any dentist that didn’t chalenge you on that might doing your teeth much good! Therapy and coaching is in part a practice of supporting clients to put tools and principles of wellbeing into action in all areas of their lives between sessions. As practitioners or clients we can engage with curiosity, responsibility and wisdom around practices such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, spaciousness and ease in daily scheduling, cultivation of nourishing intention and emotional states, fulfilling social engagements and service and other lifestyle choices as a factor of health and well being.

Physical health and well being of the body are an important and much overlooked factor in the practice of psychology: how we are sleeping, eating, pain and stress management, immune function and inflammation, the wellbeing and functioning of our bodies and the regulation of psychical and psychological processes and hormones. Whilst illness, injury and disability are a reality of many lives, we can still be committed and engaged with nourishing and intentional practices that affirm our potential and capacity for well being; maximizing our capacity for ease and health.

Physical health really does go a long way to help create well being, ease and stability of mind. Swami Vishnu-Devananda writes that ‘the yogi regards the physical body as an instrument towards his journey towards perfection.’ Perfection might not be the goalpost we have hung our hat on! but living in a way that respects and is in alignment with sane principles not only connects us deeper to ourselves but aligns us more finely to natural cycles, seasons and the world that we are part of. Health brings us greater possibilities on a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and relational planes.

We all have these amazing things – bodies!!! – – that we are walking around in, yet not many of us really lack much depth of understanding of how the body works, nor live within limits that make sense or respect our bodies, or actively engage in learning how to optimise and deepen this experience of being alive – relaxed, alert, connected. Most people don’t even know what their organs do and where they are or how their nervous system works.

Many of us are going so much faster than our natural rhythm and the pace of health dictate. Health is there, we just overtook it. We overstimulate ourselves, live lives that exasperate health conditions and stress. Then we wonder why we feel tired, sick, stressed out, emotional and somehow victims of illness rather than creators of health. We make our health -and ourselves –  someone else’s responsibility (medical community) to be treated and fixed as an object rather than a living being that we understand and can take active responsibility for as part of knowing ourselves as wisdom, love and wellness. Or we seek band-aid solutions, propping ourselves up with over or under eating and caffeine, addictions and so on to crunch more life out of a system that simply needs a different pace and alternative input.

Slowing down; reconnecting to natural cycles and seasons, local food; choosing the way we live and address situations, others and ourselves; integrating practices, nourishing internal states of wellness and integrating guiding principles or beliefs (spiritual or otherwise) that nourish well being  – is going to be a way more successful life strategy than living like a chicken with your head cut off and going to therapy once a week. Believe me, I tried it!

So the importance of cultivating a life that can be added to with treatments is fundamental, rather than a life habitually swinging wildly out of balance, to be occasionally slowed down with a session.

If you need a little help with getting started with integrating balance and balancing practices into your life, please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments and if I can help on your journey or refer you on, I will,

With warm wishes,

Elise