Embody Mental Health

Posts Tagged ‘renewal’

“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.”
German Proverb

Bindu Wiles post yesterday was about fear.  Bindu has been a breath of complicity in my blogosphere and I am very glad to have stumbled upon her writing, her story, and her 21.5.800 Challenge of which I am partaking.  Bindu’s story is one of trauma, survival and a renewal of self through therapy, yoga, buddhism, writing and breath.  Her story is emblematic of what I spoke about yesterday at the National Association of Social Worker’s Florida Conference and what has resonated in my own life story and recovery from trauma and PTSD–a restoration of breath and renewal of self by way of writing, yoga, and contemplative practices (buddhist, christian and yogic alike).  The passion I bring to my work, my speaking about the work, and into my life is one of feeling dedication and onus to perpetuate the discourse on what, for me, has been profound healing in my own life story and the stories of the patients/clients I have treated implementing the very things that brought about change for myself and my life.

“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is,” or so goes the German proverb above.  I think this statement gets to the hear of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  A primal fear, animal in nature, overcomes us when in a dangerous situation–our survival mechanism kicks in and tells us one of the following,  ”Run, hide, fight, stop where you are” which translates to the built in mechanisms for fight, flight, freeze, submit.  In danger we become like the deer in the wild, doing everything we can to survive.  When PTSD is activated that survival response is locked in, “stuck” inside our body and brain and is not let go of when danger disappears.  We are left a constant state of “danger” or “I am going to die.”  Fear.  We are in a constant state of danger/fear.  Bindu’s post resonates with me because the pervasive fear of PTSD is so overwhelming and all-encompassing; something that logic cannot dissolve easily.  The hair-trigger response to anything that resembles danger (often distorted by a high-alert PTSD brain) takes the traumatized person all the way to the feelings of “I am going to die” before the non-trauma brain could even assess the situation.  PTSD brain doesn’t go from 0-100 in one second because in that “stuck” place it is already starting at 50 before even getting out of bed in the morning–high-alert is status-quo.  And it is exhausting.  I can tell you that from experience.  Asleep is exhausting.  Awake is exhausting.  And every moment is living on the precipice of erupting with fear.

This is much of what I talked about yesterday at the conference as well as how yoga, creative arts, and animal-assisted therapies (equine, canine, and even dolphin) can have such profound healing properties for the PTSD brain and living experience.  To me the combination of these elements combines the essential ingredients for the neurobiological issues of trauma and general brain “stuckness”.  Yoga, mind/body practices, and breathwork help restore our self-regulating and self-soothing capacities, creative arts help to find an outlet for expression outside of talk, give empowerment, purpose, and competency in action to people often very broken by trauma, and animals, with their ability to be both intuitive and non-judgmental relationships for a trauma survivor who may not be able to bring themselves into interpersonal relationships due to trust, shame and fear.  It was so interesting to me, as as I am always intrigued by the synchronicity of writing and happenstance, that while I was speaking about trauma and healing, Bindu was writing about her own plight in the fear of post-trauma, her intimate connection with her dog (an innately therapeutic relationship), and breath as restoration from out of a fear-infused moment.  In two different contexts, but from the same origin, we were talking about the same things.

I thank Bindu, and other trauma survivors I have met, for her eloquent and open vocalization of her experience and her ability to bring her insight and her life practices in to play to combat trauma and PTSD.  I continue to believe in the neuroplasticity of our brains–the ability of our brains to CHANGE.  I believe in trauma survivors ability to heal.  I believe in yoga, creative arts, and animals as amazing conduits to that healing.  I believe in the power of speaking our own truths and how much vocalization can be a catalyst for change.  I thank Bindu for her story and her post.  As well as for her 21.5.800 Challenge which I think is an inspiration and a call for self-care and healing in itself.    I thank all the wonderful participants at my workshop yesterday for their passions, enthusiasm, and the inspiration they brought me in the work they are doing, the dedication to their clients, and their openness to the creative explorations in therapy I was presenting to them.

WORD COUNT FOR TODAY: 804

Caution Tape by Picture Perfect Pose at flickr

 

I have learned a lot about lizards these past few weeks.  As of this morning I can add to my credentials “One who knows what dead lizards look like in my entryway”.  Tonight I can certify that I know what amphibious mortis (please forgive my rudimentary latin translation of dead lizard) looks like after a day on an entryway floor.   They deflate…rather fast.

 

Now, you may be wondering why would I wait about 12 hours to remove said lizardus corpus (ok now I am just making my own version of latin up).  There is a two prong approach to my reasoning: 1) I was not certain that being upside down with legs in the air was a definitive diagnosis of amphibian death so I wanted to give it some time to see.  2) 7:00 am is just too early in the morning for me to brave the task of scooping up and disposing of lizard remains.

 

I believe the dead lizard, ”John Gecko Doe” is The Lizard Formerly Known As “Shower Lizard” .  He was meandering nearly lifeless around the bathroom floor at abnormally slow lizard speeds the last couple of days following the day I thought I had drowned him with my shampoo toxins.  Apparently I had caused him a much more sinister and drawn out death sentence.  I feel awful and I gave him a tiny lizard prayer as I scooped him up, flattened and scaly, and placed him into my garbage can.  Thank goodness for trash Wednesdays. 

 

But my short lived friend once fondly called ”Shower Lizard” has helped me to create my own parallel from his death to my life. 

 

 I was in a little bit of a funk yesterday.  My pain had reached an all time high by sunset to the point where I felt the familiar sensation of shooting sparks of fire rippling down from my abdomen into my thighs–if you had not guessed, this is the bad end of the endometriosis pain spectrum. 

 

On top of that I had  begun work at my new office, having completed a week of prerequisite orientation off-site, and felt the sinking feeling of “First Day of School for the New Kid” with a sense of just having been thrust from my place as well-respected innovator to unknown, anonymous, new person with no history of much consequence.  Whether this perception was just my New Kid mindset or anything besides is irrelevant it was simply that feeling of being set off kilter and humbled by the death of one life and the start of another. 

 

Rebirth–professionally speaking. 

 

Death precedes rebirth.  Nature does it.  Faith and religions talk about it.  Our human lives exhibit it.  We are in constant cycles of renewal whether by catalysts we create or those we have inflicted on us.  We are made to adapt and change along with those things in our life that require it: stagnation can happen but it is in our own best interest to constantly stretch ourselves. 

 

My move, my new job, my new locale were all things I put into my life by choice but feeling the growing pains of that change in action is a learning experience which brings me new surprises at every step. 

 

I did not know that I would have such a moment of mourning at letting go of my old professional sphere and the comfort of the known I had found in it.  I did not know that I would be separated from my husband for this long and that the distance would bring with it unknown pains and unanticipated appreciation at a deeper and deeper level for what my husband means in my life and in my heart. 

 

Change brings with it struggles with the unknown, with our own insecurities, and the growing pains that bring us out on the other side changed but evolved in some way.  The death is always rebirth of some kind and fear can becoming invigorating awareness, although always with some struggles along the way.

 

I am appreciative of the distance and time apart from my husband (on my better days) because it has allowed me the blessing of knowing my love for him in a far more dimensional way than I had ever known before.  I am thankful for the new opportunities in a new place, a new job, and the new adventures that might be on the horizon as a result.  I, as all of us do, fear the death of the old but know that what is being born is not just a new life but valuable lessons about myself along the way. 

 

I thank my fond friend of only a few short weeks “Shower Lizard” for reminding me of the cycle of life.  I hope he finds all the shower drains his little heart could ever desire wherever he has gone to.  And I really hope he is the last deflated amphibious mortis that I have to scoop for a while.  It is a disheartening side job.

 

Life is change.   Growth is optional.  Choose wisely. 

AUTHOR UNKNOWN

 

Boken by MSIChicago on flickr

                                                     {1}Starting Life by jimdeane on flickr