Day 23 | Working With Trauma & Fear | Waning Gibbous | MWTM

Welcome to day 23 of mindfulness with the moon.

Today we are in the waning gibbous phase where we're tending to ourselves.

We're tending to the fruit that is being created with this mindfulness meditation practice.

And we'll be talking about working with trauma and fear.

Many people who have experienced trauma have been able to enter this path of presence in a wise and gentle way.

And people are really able to get through it when they're dedicated to their healing.

Our bodies want to heal.

Our bodies are made to heal.

And with this remembering that trauma can be transformed into a place of profound awakening and freedom.

Now this can be a heavy subject but if we can remember what Ernest Hemingway said,

We are all broken and that's how the light gets in.

When we can pay attention to our bodies,

When we can pay attention to those moments of tenderness,

We can bring a really beautiful and creative way to start working with fear and trauma.

And when we stay with where the cracks are,

We can allow for a reconnection with wholeness to happen.

So many of you I imagine are coming with trauma and I'd like to remind you that this is workable.

I'll have some background information that Tara Brock really helped me understand in her talk that she gave where I'll be pulling out nuggets of wisdom to share with you today.

Several of the questions that come up for me often in my work as a therapist and also just in this meditation training is the question of what if it feels like too much when I'm seated?

What if I can't actually tap into mindfulness?

Or I'm so agitated I can't sit with it?

Or I start shaking?

Or I can't feel anything?

And there are a lot of people in our world who are living with post-traumatic stress.

Many statistics confirm across countries and it's even higher in lower-income countries and in places of conflict.

But it's estimated that 70% of adults have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lives.

And up to 20% go on to experience post-traumatic stress.

And this is consistent across countries.

That's one in five of us.

And traumatizing experiences are incredibly common.

We usually think of it as being sexual abuse or war or a natural disaster.

Yes,

And there's a whole other range of situations that create trauma as well.

So what is trauma?

Tara Brock frames this really simply and I'll share it with you now.

Trauma arises in a situation where the nervous system is overwhelmed and our normal coping strategies don't work.

So in other words,

We're not able to fight successfully or flee successfully or to move the energy from our bodies that's created from a traumatic event.

And so the energy from the traumatic experience actually gets stuck in our tissues.

So then any sign of danger,

Even if it's imagined danger,

Can trigger an acute stress response.

And we have parts of our brain that have evolved for monitoring for and learning to respond to danger.

And then this part of our brain remains overactive and we start regularly excreting cortisol and other stress hormones that are toxic for neural connection.

Let's take an example of an animal in nature.

Let's take a rabbit.

The rabbit is eating,

Minding his own business.

And then he hears the rustle.

He looks,

He sees a cat.

The cat starts chasing him.

He starts running,

Running,

Running as fast as his little legs can carry him.

And he gets as far as away as he possibly can.

He thinks he's gotten away and then he freezes and collapse.

He falls over,

Which is his body's natural response.

And he's frozen in time.

And when his body starts to come back into the present moment,

His heart rate starts to slow down a bit.

After the traumatic experience has passed,

He looks around.

It seems safe.

And then he shakes,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Shake,

Every part of his body,

His head,

His arms,

His tail,

His feet.

He moves the cortisol through his body,

Expounds all the energy,

And then jumps up again.

And he releases the fear so that it doesn't turn into stuck energy that could make him sick in the future.

So it's,

It's not his fault that he was chased.

It's a part of life.

And you are the same.

The trauma that has happened is not your fault.

It's not personal.

And we can learn some skills to reset the nervous system and to rewire the brain and the body.

And our nervous system is just reacting with anxiety or depression.

And for many of us,

Good holistic therapy can be really supportive in conjunction with learning these mindfulness techniques.

In the notes of this podcast,

You can find information to reach out to our private practice,

The Macaranda Method,

If some more support in working with trauma would be helpful for you.

So Dan Siegel has talked about something called the window of tolerance.

So we're going to explore this again.

There is a tolerance zone where we can feel a lot of discomfort,

But there's still a sense that we can handle it.

This varies individual by individual.

But what we're working to do is to work with the tolerance zone and to say,

Oh,

That's the distress zone,

Or I can stay here.

This is possible for me to stay in this tolerance zone.

And we start to create a little more space for the tolerance zone.

So when in doubt,

Resource,

Resource,

Resource,

Resource.

All the trauma-based research is showing that first we have to evoke love and safety before any effort of directing our awareness to the fear and trauma can really happen.

So how do we resource?

I'll lead a meditation that brings us into feeling into our tolerance zone,

Grounding ourselves and resourcing ourselves when it's feeling perhaps too much.

So how do we ground?

You can feel it right now.

As you're sitting,

Can you feel the weight and the gravity,

Feeling the connection of your seat to the earth?

You can ground by touching an object next to you.

You can direct yourself to tuning into a part of your body that feels neutral.

Oftentimes it can be the feet or the hands for people.

Another thing that's supportive is touch.

There are actually nerves near our belly that the warmth of touch,

Our own hands can actually calm us.

It helps to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and deactivate the sympathetic nervous system so we can take some deeper breaths and stay with ourselves.

We can also use metta or loving kindness to practice a way of cultivating and resourcing this idea of may I breathe and bring kindness to what I'm experiencing and bit by bit inviting ourselves to be able to check out and sense a quality of presence and tenderness to what's arising.

It's helpful for us to develop skills and in these strategies when we're not feeling a strong sense of fear so that they will be more available when they're most needed.

So we'll start by taking a few deep breaths,

Grounding ourselves into the moment.

You'll hear three bells to begin and three bells to close.

Start by taking a few deep grounding breaths.

Allowing yourself to sit comfortably.

Become aware of the sensations in the bottom of your feet.

Perhaps there's a place where your feet hit the ground.

Notice the weight of your feet.

Notice the weight of your body on your seat.

See if you can notice the contact of where your arms rest on your legs and let your breath be slow and full.

See if you can notice the sense of gravity holding you down.

Breathing with the rhythm of the earth.

With your senses awake.

Recognizing that you are right here.

Noticing what's arising.

Noticing what's closing.

Noticing what's opening.

Noticing what's closing.

Noticing what's opening.

Noticing what it's like to ground.

And shifting your awareness to another technique that might be supportive for you,

Which is to touch something that roots you to the earth.

Maybe it's the fabric of your clothing.

Or maybe it's touching the earth with your hands.

Or maybe it's touching something that you carry with you,

Like a stone or a piece of jewelry.

Something that's either pleasant or neutral.

You can also place a hand on your belly or maybe even on your shoulder,

Right?

Any part of your body that feels like it could use a little extra attention and care,

You can always place your hand there if that feels comfortable to you.

Just listening to what grounding resources you need today.

Another approach to grounding is to name 10 things that you can notice based on where you are.

10 things that you can see,

Feel,

Notice.

This brings us right into the moment,

Grounding us to what's here now.

To what's here now.

Breathing slowly and deeply.

See if you can match the length of the in-breath and the out-breath so that they're about five seconds long each.

In for five.

And out for five.

Let the breath be slow and continuous without pause.

Seeing how smoothly you can make the inhales and the exhales.

If parts of your body start to tense,

Notice what it's like to release those parts on the exhale.

As you breathe,

See if you can relax your face,

Including your tongue.

All the way from the top of your head all the way down to your root.

You're upright and relaxed.

It's this fine balance.

This equanimity.

Simply following the breath.

Now if something strong arises,

A strong emotion,

You can try touching in on it.

We call this titrating,

Where you're just little by little feeling into the strong fear or the strong sensation.

And then backing off when it feels like too much coming to a grounding point.

And then maybe you can step back forward again,

Sensing in how that is.

And then you can back off a little bit,

Grounding again,

Resourcing yourself.

You can stay with neutral or even pleasant sensations in the body.

And then you might go into where some pain is.

And then you might come back again to what's neutral.

Notice what happens as you practice with this.

Breathing.

Noticing what's arising and staying with yourself.

Working with yourself without needing to push.

Slow and steady,

Gentle and kind.

Nurturing yourself.

Grounding yourself.

With the support of the earth.

With the support of gravity.

With the support of breath.

With the support of the moon.

Thank you for working with this topic of trauma and fear.

Working with trauma and fear is a part of life.

It's a part of the human incarnation.

And I want to remind you that mindfulness works best when we're resourced.

We're well-fed.

We're well-rested.

We've been taking care of ourselves.

We're in healthy relationships.

And so working on these resourcing and these grounding techniques so that when we're under-resourced we can remind ourselves,

Oh yeah,

I can ground myself.

I can resource myself.

I can practice staying with myself no matter what arises with practice.

So you can always use the grounding strategies that we've talked about.

And you can also go on a walk with a friend,

Make a cup of tea,

Read a book,

Take a shower,

Spend time connecting with the moon.

See you tomorrow and take good care of yourselves.