PTSD – Grow Mindfulness

Awakening to Collective Trauma

In the previous post I discussed healing collective trauma in the light of presentations during the Collective Trauma Summit 2023. The discussion identified a wide range of trauma healing modalities that can be employed in helping individuals heal from trauma – whether individual, intergenerational or cultural trauma. One of the key themes was the need to normalise collective trauma so that a global healing movement can develop and thrive. A number of recent novels throw light on the manifestation of collective trauma in different communities.

Novels describing collective trauma

Alli Parker, descendent of an Australian soldier and his Japanese wife, vividly describes life within Japan during the time of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF) and within Australia at the time of the White Australia Policy (induced by fear of Asians). In her book, At the Foot of the Cherry Tree, Alli describes the stresses on the relationship of her grandparents, Gordon and Cherry Parker, and their extended, exhausting efforts to have Cherry successfully settled in Australia. The married couple experienced trenchant opposition at both ends – Japan and Australia. In Japan, Gordon was punished by the MPs for breaking the anti-fraternisation policy of the Australian Army and was viewed as an “enemy stranger” by the Japanese community. In Australia, Gordon and Cherry were bullied and harassed by people inheriting hatred and anger from traumatic events experienced at the hands of the Japanese during the war.

Elise Esther Hearst, author of One Day We’re All Going To Die, describes in vivid detail the life of Naomi who works at a Museum of Jewish Heritage and whose turbulent life is lived in the pervasive shadow of “the unspoken grief” of her Grandmother , a Holocaust survivor. The impact of Naomi’s intergenerational trauma is reflected in her maladaptive behaviour, e.g., toxic sexual relationships, and “need to please” and not disappoint. Naomi is enmeshed in community expectations, including the expectation that she would marry a good Jewish man (because non-Jews did not understand the trauma of the Holocaust and what Jewish families had to experience). Throughout her life, Naomi is surrounded by the “echoes of the dead and dying” as they are “in objects, in story, in her grandmother’s firm grasp”. This leaves her wondering what is “normal” and how to behave as a “normal person”. The novel highlights the identity crisis that can occur with intergenerational trauma.

Normalising collective trauma

During the Summit, Laura Calderon de la Barca highlighted the need to mainstream and normalise the experience of trauma and recovery and pointed to Alanis Morissette (A Summit presenter) as an example of this normalisation process. Alanis has spoken about her “tool kit” that has assisted her in her “trauma recovery journey” and enabled her to deal with her negative inner dialogue. Her toolkit included movement through stage performances, exposure to nature (sun and water), mindfulness practices, and writing songs. Her personal way forward included pursuing relationships which, in turn, required her to manage the associated vulnerability.

Awareness of collective trauma can also be developed through prominent journalists such as Helen Pick telling their story. Helen, a British-Australian journalist who was UN Correspondent for the Guardian newspaper, shares her story of being one of the children involved in Kindertransport, removal of children from Nazi Germany to London by trains. In her recollection, published in a Guardian article titled, My Family and Other Enemy Agents, she recounts how disorientating the experience was. She found that the transfer to a foreign land “muddled her sense of identity” and she was externally identified, even as a child, as a “foreign alien”. Despite being effectively “anglicised”, Helen indicated that at some level she feels “rootless”, having lost all memory of her childhood in Austria (possibly a form of dissociative amnesia). She pointed to the documentary, Into The Arms of Strangers, as a recounting of their Kindertransport experience by a number of refugees and noted that she could relate to some aspects of their experience especially the felt need “to meld into the social fabric of their new homeland”. Producer of the film, Deborah Oppenheimer, provides insights into tone of the film, the lessons learned and the impacts of the Kindertransport experience on the lives of the children involved. Deborah received the Academy Award for the Best Documentary (Feature) in 2001.

Reflection

Alli Parker provided me with an insight into what life was like for Australian soldiers engaged in the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan. My father was stationed in Japan as part of this occupation force and I had no idea how traumatic that would have been after having survived 4 years in Changi as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese.

I am finding that as I grow in mindfulness through a range of mindfulness practices that I am better able to understand and emphasize with my father despite his alcohol addiction as a result of PTSD.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site and the resources to support the blog.

Building Tolerance through Understanding

We have each experienced situations where someone seems to overact to what appears to be a minor stimulus – a sound, a sight, something said, or a gentle touch on the arm. For example, I have seen people become hysterical while just observing a one-on-one facilitation process or hearing a very loud note sung close to them. More than likely, we have each observed a disruptive person in a team meeting or training course, someone who is withdrawn and refuses to engage in conversation or someone who is overly aggressive. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey in their book, What Happened to You? maintain that understanding the impact of trauma on others helps us to build tolerance for what seems initially to be aberrant behaviour. They argue that the foundation for that understanding is learning about how our brains operate.

Understanding how our brains work

Bruce illustrates the processes of the brain by showing an inverted triangle with the cortex at the top and the “lower brain” or reptilian brain at the bottom. While the cortex enables us to think, create and plan and is conscious of time (past, present and future), the lower part of the brain has no sense of time but serves to regulate bodily functions. The fundamental problem with our emotional and behavioural response to stimuli is that all sensory input (perceptions) are first processed in the lower part of the brain and interpreted there after matching with prior experiences (which are stored along with the emotional content). This is why someone who shares a disturbing event with others can become quite emotional even when the event occurred many years before.

The associated problem is that sensory input (sight, sound, taste, touch and smell) can stimulate recall of a traumatic experience – “a powerful, frightening or isolating sensory experience”. Bruce discusses a case study of a veteran of the Korean war experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The sound of a motorcycle backfiring would generate an “extreme survival response” such as immediately lying prone on the ground behind some form of shelter. Bruce comments that what was originally an “adaptive protective memory” (for surviving in the trenches “where you had to keep your head down”), had become a maladaptive behavioural response. The veteran’s life became “miserable” because he was frequently startled, always on the alert (scanning a room or the environment continuously) and often “jumpy”.

Maladaptive responses

Oprah pointed out that people like the veteran who have maladaptive responses to stimuli, often ask “What’s wrong with me?” The book she has produced with Bruce, changes the focus to “What happened to you”. Understanding what people have experienced and the depth of the impact on their lives helps to build tolerance and empathy, and ideally, compassionate action. Bruce explained that for each of us “every moment builds upon all other moments that come before”. The net result of our personal history shaping our brain’s development is that “each of our brains are unique” – our experiences, traumatic and otherwise, shape our perceptions of the world, what we feel and how we respond.

Oprah describes in detail her own traumatic experiences and maintains from her numerous interviews with people who have experienced trauma, that the result is often self-sabotage in the form of addiction, abuse, promiscuity or “the need-to-please”. She argues that there is considerable work to be done by the individual and their therapist to identify the trauma-inducing event, the “evocative cues”, and the related emotional and behavioral responses.

Reflection

We can become more tolerant of other people if we acknowledge Bruce’s findings (developed through neuroscience and clinical practice) that “each of us sees and understands the world in a unique way” – and this conclusion applies to us also! Our view of the world is not the only view nor is it necessarily complete, accurate or uncontaminated by our life experiences. We are challenged to recognise our own fallibility, especially if we too have had traumatic experiences that will have shaped our perceptions and responses. We can build our tolerance of others too if we work to understand what trauma does to the brain and its impact on behavioural responses. Bruce suggests that we approach others with a degree of “curiosity”, wanting to understand what happened to them (not what’s wrong with them). Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations, encourages us to cultivate openness and curiosity – to replace criticism with understanding.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, journalling, research on trauma and meditation, we can develop greater openness and curiosity, increase our self-awareness (including of the impacts of trauma on our own emotional and behavioural responses) and cultivate understanding, empathy and compassion.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Healing Trauma – Dealing with the Visceral Imprint

In a previous post I discussed the complexity of trauma and the need to adopt treatment practices that recognise and respect this complexity. Bessel van der Kolk in his book, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma, expresses serious concern with the overreliance on medication to treat trauma, especially for returning veterans suffering from PTSD. He contends that “drugs cannot cure trauma” but only serve to “dampen down” manifestations of a “disturbed physiology” such as violence, overwhelm and uncontrolled anger. He argues that the side effects of reliance on drug therapy include addiction, lessening the capacity for self-regulation and blocking the senses that otherwise would be the source of pleasure and motivation, emotion and pain. In his view, the treatment aim is not to “blunt emotional sensitivity” but to achieve integration of the traumatic experience into a person’s “arc of life”.

Bessel argues that a traumatised person’s basic challenge in recovery is to re-establish ownership of themselves – the whole person, mind, body and soul. He contends that this plays out as a fourfold challenge – (1) developing ways to become focused and calm, (2) sustaining calmness when confronted with stimuli such as noise, images and smells that otherwise would trigger a traumatised response, (3) becoming fully engaged with life and relationships and (4) being open to one’s real self without hiding behind “secrets” that are designed as self-protection (e.g. against shame and self-loathing). Bessel suggests that the effectiveness of each of the four approaches can vary with the individual and the stage of the healing process. He illustrates through case studies that the healing journey can be a life-long process with occasional or frequent relapses.

Bessel maintains that, in the long run, confronting the traumatic event(s) in all their horror is necessary for healing. However, he cautions about rushing this process without first building a person’s capacity to cope with the fullness of the “visceral imprint” and its related sensitivities (e.g. to specific sounds, smells, thoughts). Confronting the harsh reality of the precipitating event(s) too soon, when the person is ill-equipped, can lead to an individual being re-traumatised.

Bessel contends that the focus of recovery has to switch from the “rational brain” to the “emotional brain” which manifests trauma in the form of physical sensations impacting the heart, breathing, voice, gut and movement of the body (e.g. resulting in bodily movements “that signify collapse, rigidity, rage or defensiveness”.) The overall aim is to restore the “the balance between the rational brain and the emotional brain”, because in a traumatised person the rational brain is often overwhelmed by the emotional brain that can “see” danger where it does not exist and inappropriately activates a fight, flight or freeze response

Healing modalities for trauma that recognise the mind-body-emotion connection

Throughout his book, Bessel discusses a range of trauma healing modalities that he has researched and practiced with his clients. His approach is quite eclectic, drawing on both Western and Eastern healing traditions. He demonstrates through case histories that one modality more than another, or a particular mix of modalities, may prove effective in individual cases. He appears to adopt a trial-and-error approach to achieve the best fit for a traumatised individual, informed in part by their life skills and the precipitating trauma event. Some of the healing modalities he adopts are identified below:

Controlled breathing – here he encourages slow, deep breathing that that tap into the parasympathetic nervous system and its capacity to reduce arousal and induce calm. Breathing also serves to enhance oxygen flow to energise the body.
Movement modalities – these can include Tai Chi, yoga, martial arts and the rhythmic movement associated with African drumming. Bessel notes that each of these modalities simultaneously involve not only movement but also breathing and meditation.
Mindfulness practices – Bessel points out that traumatised people often avoid their challenging feelings and related bodily sensations. Mindfulness which generates self-awareness enables the traumatised person to notice their feelings and sensations and the precipitating triggers. This can lead to emotional regulation, rather than emotional overwhelm which can occur when people try to ignore or hide their real feelings and sensations. Peter Levine’s “somatic experiencing” approach is an example of a related mindfulness practice that can contribute to healing trauma.
Singing – can engage the whole person (body, mind, soul and emotions). Effective singing requires appropriate posture and breath control, opening up the airways and, at the same time, releasing emotions. In group sessions with singing teacher, Chris James, I have often observed the spontaneous flow of emotions as people, both men and women, become more engaged and absorbed in the process, learn to let themselves go and find their “natural voice”. Chris maintains that singing enhances “vibrational awareness”, engenders “self-discovery” and builds “conscious presence”.
Chanting and mantra meditations – chanting can reduce depression, increase positivity and heighten relaxation. It has been proven to be effective in helping veterans suffering from PTSD. Tina Turner found Buddhist chanting to be very effective in overcoming her trauma and re-building her singing career. Likewise, mantra meditations (that typically incorporate chants) can lead to calm, peace and energy and enable reintegration of body, mind, emotion and spirit.

Reflection

Bessel encourages the use of multiple healing modalities when working with traumatised individuals. He suggests too that the modalities described above can help anyone deal with life’s challenges, restore balance and build energy. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and related mindfulness practices, we can gain self-awareness, develop self-management and heal from trauma and the scars of adverse experiences, whether in childhood or adulthood.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Domestic Violence: A Catalyst for Pursuing Life Purpose

The challenge we are confronted with during various stages of our life is to decide what is our purpose in life. Finding that unique purpose can lead to a singular focus, total commitment and “unified action”, where your contribution to community – utilising your unique knowledge, skills, experiences, insights, and connections – becomes your unifying focus. Trent Dalton, journalist and author of All Our Shimmering Skies, tells the story of how domestic and family violence became the catalyst for Nicolle Edwards and husband Gareth to identify and pursue their life purpose in the form of RizeUp Australia, a registered charity providing concrete support to women and families fleeing domestic violence.

Trent’s story, Hands & Hearts in the Australian Weekend Magazine (12-13 December 2020), describes the practical help that RizeUp provides in terms of furnishing a house for domestic and family violence refugees. With the help of a large social media following and a very large group of volunteers, Nicolle and Gareth provide home-making support for DV refugees when they move out of a Women’s Shelter to often-unfurnished, emergency accommodation. The list of furniture and accessories provided at no cost (or fuss), including bedding and basic appliances, is extensive and very impressive – all provided and set up for free through donations of goods and money and the donation of time and effort by volunteers in the RizeUp network. Nicolle comments in the article that the “sigh of relief” of the recipient mother is motivation enough for her to dedicate herself to this life purpose.

Nicole realised that she could help domestic violence refugees and their children when she turned to social media to provide help to a DV refugee very early on (before RizeUp was created in 2015). She was amazed at the response and with Gareth created the RizeUp network, which has now set up more than 980 homes for DV refugees and their families. The RizeUp Facebook page provides many photos showing volunteers at work and the kind of practical home support provided by the network. Nicole and Gareth demonstrate the strength and sensitivity required to pursue your life purpose.

My story – my experience of domestic and family violence

I experienced domestic and family violence as a child because my father, who was suffering from PTSD, had become an alcoholic. I heard the many shouting fights between my mother and father because he was spending so much of our income on alcohol. I do recall our family at one stage living off food donations from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. I also recall the times when my mother ended up in hospital after particularly violent arguments.

I left home immediately after Grade 12 to study in Victoria and when I returned five years later the situation had not improved. So, one day when my father was at work, I helped my mother pack her things and moved the both of us to a small house at the back of a shop. The strangely happy part of the story is that after my parents divorced, my father remarried, gave up alcohol and walked every day for an hour for his physical and mental health. He also used to drive my mother to church each Sunday after the separation.

It is only as I grew older that I realised how little support there was for my father whose nerves were shattered after serving in the Australian Army in Singapore in the Second World War. He had been a prisoner-of-war in Changi prison for 18 months following the capture of Singapore by the Japanese. Stephen Wynn describes life after The Surrender of Singapore as “three years of hell”. Not long after my father’s release from Changi, he was deployed as part of the Allied Occupation Forces in Japan.

On reflecting on these early life experiences of domestic violence, I believe that they have unconsciously motivated me to work towards developing mentally healthy workplaces and communities both in my consulting and writing. In my organisational consulting work, I have particularly worked with managers to build managerial mindfulness – consciousness about the impact that their words and actions have on the development of a productive and mentally healthy workplace. In writing this blog, I have focused on mindfulness, mental health, trauma, and leadership as my contribution to providing individuals in the community and managers with resources, practices, and processes to create a mentally healthy life.

What is your story?

Recently, Tami Simon from Sounds True introduced a new publication written by Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond who took ten years to develop and refine the reflective processes incorporated in their book. The transformative and interactive journal, titled What’s Your Story: A Journal for Everyday Evolution, provides a series of strategic questions to help you reflect on your life story (by theme and/or area of your life). The deeply penetrating questions are designed to challenge self-limiting beliefs and throw light on a possible path forward. The authors hope to enable you “to begin living your most authentic, creative, and meaningful life”.

Reflection

Sometimes the search for our life purpose is confounding and confusing – it seems to go around in circles before achieving some degree of clarity. Our life purpose might prove illusive because it can be changing over time. As we gain greater personal insight and experience different catalytic events, we may find that what was truly purposeful and meaningful at one point in our life, is no longer adequate or energizing. As we grow in mindfulness through journalling, meditation and reflection, we can develop an expanded view of what we are capable of, build the courage to pursue our unique purpose, and positively impact others and ourselves. It is in achieving alignment with our life purpose that we find meaning and happiness.

Another useful resource is an eight-week course, Your True Calling, which is available online at Sounds True. The author Stephen Cope, wrote the book, The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Disconnection from Childhood Trauma: A Potential Determinant of Depression and Ill-Health

Johann Hari, in his book Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression, identified seven social causes of depression including the loss of connection to other people. One of the surprising findings in his discussions with researchers and his colleagues, was the link between obesity, childhood trauma and depression. In the final analysis, collectively they established that in many instances unresolved childhood trauma was a determinant of obesity and depression.

Obesity and depression

Johann drew on the ground-breaking research of Dr. Vincent Felitti, Founding Chairman of the Department of Preventative Medicine of Kaiser Permanente – a fully integrated medical provider offering not only health care plans but also services such as specialist medical practitioners, a dynamic medical school, mental health services and education and an affordable housing initiative. Kaiser Permanente views a healthy life for all as a cause to pursue, and is a pioneer in offering seamless health services along with leading edge research into preventative methods and treatment approaches.

Kaiser Permanente commissioned Vincent to undertake research into obesity because it was becoming the major factor in the growth of its operational costs. Vincent started out by using a specialised diet plan supported by vitamin supplements that was designed to help obese people lose weight. This approach appeared highly successful on early indications, but Vincent noticed that the people most successful at losing weight were dropping out of the program and returning to their eating habits and becoming overweight again. Additionally, they often experienced depression, suicidal thoughts, rage or panic.

Research by way of interview of 286 participants dropping out of the obesity program established that most had been sexually abused or experienced some other form of childhood trauma. Obesity was their way to deal with the aftereffects of childhood trauma, including fear of sexual assault and the desire to hide their shame.

Childhood trauma and depression

Vincent was surprised by the findings of the initial study and realised that research of childhood history as a determinant of adult ill health had been avoided previously because of shame, secrecy and the taboo nature of the topic. Yet his early findings established that childhood trauma played out powerfully decades later in terms of emotional state, biomedical disease and life expectancy. He found, for example, that 55% of participants in the obesity study had suffered childhood sexual abuse.

The link between obesity, depression and childhood trauma was not well received by the established medical profession. The video, A Tribute to Dr. Vincent Felitti, highlights the scorn he experienced when first announcing his findings at a medical conference and demonstrates the resilience of a man who had the courage to back his research and the bravery to pursue his creativity.

Vincent was convinced that he had to undertake research with a larger and broader sample of people to establish the credibility of his findings. Through Kaiser Permanente’s processes of capturing the medical history of patients he was able, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Anda of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), to add additional questions relating to life history. The questions picked up on the 10 types of childhood trauma identified by participants in the earlier study. The 17,500 participants involved in the second study were representative of the broader population of California where the study was done. They were middle class with an average age of 57 and were employed.

The research titled the Adverse Childhood Experience Study (ACE) highlighted even more surprising results. Two thirds of the participants in the research program had experienced one or more traumatic events. One in nine had experienced 5 or more adverse childhood events. They also established that the higher the number of different adverse childhood events experienced by an individual (their ACE Score), the greater the likelihood of that person committing suicide.

Typical strategies adopted by individuals to cope with the impacts of childhood trauma only exacerbate the problem of ill health, e.g. smoking or over-eating. Vincent maintained that the experience of chronic, unrelieved stress affects the nervous system and the brain and can produce “the release of pro-inflammatory chemicals in a person’s body”, leading to suppression of the immune system.

What can be done about childhood trauma?

I have previously discussed principles and guidelines for trauma-informed mindfulness practice. Johann Hari, in the section of his book on reconnection strategies offered several strategies that could have a positive effect on the negative impacts of childhood trauma, such as obesity and depression. His recommended reconnection strategies include social prescribing and reconnection with nature, meaningful work and meaningful values.

Vincent Felitti, too, was concerned that people who had experienced childhood trauma need some form of hope about their ability to redress its negative effects. He decided to do further research involving medical practitioners who were treating patients through Kaiser Permanente. He provided them with a few simple questions to ask patients that related to life history and covered childhood experiences, and asked them to express genuine empathy and respect for the patient.

Vincent found that the participants showed “a significant reduction in illness” once a patient shared their story of childhood trauma with a doctor. He thought that the explanation for this was twofold – (1) the person was sharing their story with another person for the first time and (2) the recipient of the disclosure was a trusted authority figure who treated them with kindness and respect. He postulated that the intermediate effects related to the fact that the experience removed the shame and self-loathing associated with the adverse childhood event. The association of the childhood trauma with the experience of humiliation was broken. Vincent acknowledged that this was an area for further research.

Vincent argued that the ultimate solution to childhood trauma lay in “primary prevention” and advocated for the integration of their research findings into primary care medical practice. He also supported the development of a life experience questionnaire reporting on childhood trauma as a part of a patient’s medical record that could subsequently be viewed by the treating doctor. A healing conversation could take place if the patient was willing and able to share their story.

David Treleaven warns, however, that when dealing with someone suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it is imperative not to tackle the trauma experience head-on. He advocates a trauma-sensitive mindfulness approach. Sam Himelstein also cautions against the use of direct questioning and talking where a person is outside their window of tolerance.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through research, meditation and reflection, we can begin to recognise the impact of our own experience of childhood trauma and address the negative impacts it has on our own life and relationships. We can also become sensitised to the experience of others who have experienced adverse childhood events and take this into account when dealing with individuals and groups who are seeking to use a mindfulness approach to improve their quality of life.

Johann provides a further resource to explore the whole question of depression in his later book, Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Understanding Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness

David Treleaven, through his doctoral dissertation and subsequent book, has raised awareness globally about the need for trauma-sensitive mindfulness. His book, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, identifies three myths about mindfulness and trauma, discusses research-based case studies and offers clear options for the way forward. His work is so critical to the teaching of mindfulness that Brown University has sought to integrate his work and findings into their Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Course and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute is exploring integration of David’s approach into their Mindful Leadership program.

Trauma and mindfulness

Trauma is described as “the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event”. Many organisations and trainers/consultants/psychologists offer services, strategies and programs for trauma sufferers. Beyond Blue, for example, offers coping strategies and ways that friends and relatives can help someone close to them who is suffering from a traumatic event.

Mindfulness has become acknowledged as an effective way to deal with trauma. For example, Boyd, Lanius and McKinnon (2018) concluded from a review of the relevant literature that mindfulness-based therapeutic approaches are effective in reducing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They suggested that reduction in shame and self-blame could be key explanations of the efficacy of mindfulness-based approaches to PTSD.

David, however, warns that there are potential difficulties in using a mindfulness approach if practitioners are not sensitive to the interplay between mindfulness practices, beliefs about the universal efficacy of mindfulness and related messaging. He points out that most people will experience at least one traumatic event in their life. So, in any one room of meditation participants, there is likely to be one or more people who are experiencing trauma in their lives.

David dedicates his life to making people aware of the need for trauma-sensitive mindfulness through his book, videos, podcasts and workshops. He articulates his concerns about a lack of sensitivity to this issue amongst meditation teachers by identifying three “myths” about mindfulness and trauma that can potentially create harm for trauma sufferers.

Three myths about mindfulness and trauma

David’s research with trauma sufferers and practitioners in the field working with people who have experienced trauma, has led him to identify three “myths” (widely held false beliefs) that impede effective and safe use of mindfulness approaches. The myths are powerful determinants of the behaviour of mindfulness teachers:

Universality – David describes this myth as “one size fits all”. However, David’s experience is that for some people who have experienced trauma, meditation can activate trauma stimuli so that the person re-experiences trauma. As Peter Devine comments, “The nervous system can’t tell the difference between that [reliving the trauma] and the original trauma”.
Certainty – this myth relates to the assumption by meditation teachers that they will know when a person has experienced (or is currently experiencing) trauma. David cites a case of a very experienced meditation teacher who failed to pick up the cues that some of his trainees were trauma sufferers. He maintains that there are some very subtle non-verbal cues that can signal the existence of trauma, but it requires sensitised awareness to detect them. He suggests that two major impediments that get in the road of someone openly disclosing their experience of trauma are (1) feelings of shame and (2) compliance (felt need to conform to an authority figure).
Neutrality – the myth that breath is always neutral, with no emotive content. David recounts the experience of one person who was traumatised by a violent parent when a child. Focusing on his breath “reconnected with the need to hide”, caused him to re-live his trauma and led to increased anxiety. So, instead of being a calming anchor, mindful breathing acted as a trauma stimulus.

Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: some strategies

David provides considerable detail, explanation and case illustrations of these myths in his book on Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness and in a video presentation on The Truth About Mindfulness and Trauma, which was a promotional webinar for his course for practitioners on recognising trauma, responding to trauma and preventing the re-living of trauma during mindfulness practice.

In the video mentioned above, David suggests a range of strategies that address the limitations and potential damaging effects of the three myths:

Develop awareness about possible difficulties for people during mindfulness practices
Increase knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the signs of trauma
Provide space for people to experience different aspects of mindfulness practice and be ready to make modifications after asking, “What would work for you?”
Acknowledge at the outset that some people may have a very different experience to the calming effects of mindfulness meditation
Offer the opportunity for participants to approach you privately to have a conversation about their experience
Don’t reinforce the “shoulds” of mindfulness experience, e.g. avoid saying, “you should experience calm and peace”
Avoid “close and sustained attention to breath” as this may be a stimulus for re-experiencing trauma
Offer a range of options for people to practice mindfulness so that they can choose their own anchor for paying attention, e.g. breath, sounds, the sensation of the feet on the floor, feeling of the body on the chair or fingers touching each other. According to David, Paula Ramirez, a Director of Breathe International, maintains that this choice of options gives participants a sense of agency (the opposite of a loss of control).

As we grow in mindfulness through our own meditation, research and reflection, we can become more sensitive to the needs of people who have suffered (or are suffering) trauma; be better able to respond to their needs; and also learn to adopt strategies that avoid re-traumatising participants in mindfulness training groups.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Becoming Healed by Nature

In the previous post, I discussed the stress-reduction effects of trees. Florence Williams takes this discussion and research focus further when she explores the healing power of nature. Florence, a journalist and writer, is the author of The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative. She draws on the latest science, proven practices from around the world and individual case studies to promote the healing power of nature.

Experiencing “nature-deficit disorder”

In a TED Talk given in 2016, Florence described the effects of her own nature-deficit disorder resulting from moving home from the openness of the wilderness environment of Boulder, Colorado to the dense, built environment of Washington D.C. She explained that her sense of wellbeing declined rapidly – she experienced depression, anxiety, irritability and a “sluggish brain”. She was hyper-sensitive to the sounds of planes and noise pollution that surrounded her. However, her saving experience was to be assigned to write for Outside Magazine about the Japanese practice of “forest bathing” (Shinrin-yoku) – absorbing nature through your senses
(sights, sounds, smell, touch, taste). This, in turn, stimulated her interest in the power of nature to make us happier, healthier and more creative.

Global trend to use the power of nature to heal

Following on from the research and writing project in Japan, Florence undertook a global project on behalf of National Geographic. In researching practices involving the use of nature for healing, she discovered different practices in a range of countries. Besides Japan’s “forest therapy trails”, Korea has established “healing forests” along with “forest healing rangers” to take children on programs designed to overcome everything from digital addiction to bullying. Based on their experience and scientific research, Finland has recommended that people spend at least 5 hours a month in nature – a minimum that reflects how nature-deprived we are in the cities of the world. where so much time is spent indoors and on digital devices.

Florence describes the research and practices she uncovered in her global project in a video presentation titled, Your Brain on Nature. This video summarises her book on the power of nature to heal. She gives examples from across the world where nature has been used to help troubled teenagers, people suffering from depression, adults who have experienced trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and people working in jobs that create a lot of stress such as the role of firefighters.

In her introductory chapter, Florence points to Wordsworth and Beethoven as creative people who drew their inspiration from nature, thus serving as forerunners to modern day neuroscience research which is exploring the impact of nature on our brains – and on our health, happiness and creativity. She points out that the research from the Mappiness app (daily mood monitoring by thousands of people over an extended period) concluded that people are much happier outdoors in nature than they are in urban environments devoid of natural features. She notes the research by Elisabeth Nisbit and John Zelenski that suggests that because of our habitual “disconnection from nature” we tend to “underestimate the psychological benefits of nature”. Their research highlighted that even green spaces in urban environments can elevate mood and generate happiness.

Science shows us how we can be healed by nature

In a landmark article on the impact of time in nature on our wellbeing, Kevin Loria advances 12 science-based reasons we should spend more time outside:

improves short-term memory
helps us to de-stress
can reduce inflammation
reduces fatigue by restoring energy
helps overcome depression and anxiety
my have a protective impact on vision (e.g. reduced rate of myopia)
improves capacity to focus
enhances creativity
improves the immune system
lowers blood pressure
promotes the production of anti-cancer proteins
lowers the risk of an early death.

The science in support of the benefits of nature on health, happiness and creativity is building rapidly as scientists and medical professionals become increasingly aware of the negative impacts of “nature-deficit disorder”.

As we grow in mindfulness through mindful immersion in nature and growing awareness of nature’s healing powers, we can begin to enjoy the benefits of improved health, happiness and creativity. In turn, we can deepen our awe of nature – its energy, beauty and majesty.

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Image by Sven Lachmann from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Accessing Our Inner Resources to Cope With Trauma

Mindfulness through “resourcing meditation” can help us to cope with trauma. It does not replace the need for therapeutic assistance but complements therapy and facilitates the process of dealing with deeply held fear or grief.

The causes of trauma

Trauma can be experienced by anyone at any stage of life. The associated experience of profound psychological distress can result from a natural disaster such as a cyclone or earthquake; a personal life event such as the death of a parent. life partner or a child; being involved in a serious car or transport accident; the experience of going to war or being a prisoner of war; experiencing a vicious relationship break-up; being a person displaced by war; experiencing a toxic work environment over an extended period; being a refugee attacked by pirates when trying to flee a war-torn country by boat (the experience of Anh Do).

People in helping professions can experience vicarious trauma by virtue of supporting others who have had a traumatic experience. So midwives in a hospital can experience trauma when a mother and/or baby dies; professionals providing access to legal aid can be overcome by constant exposure to the recounting of traumatic experiences by clients; police, ambulance drivers and paramedics can experience vicarious trauma as a result of the work they do with victims of crime or serious car accidents; and police and their life partners, too, can experience trauma vicariously as a result of the death of a colleague through violence.

The effects of trauma

Just as the causes of trauma can be many and varied, so too are the effects experienced by people who have been traumatised. Some people experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This usually occurs when a person experiences an event that is personally life-threatening to themselves or others and is more likely in situations where a pre-existing mental illness is present, and/or a series of traumatic events are involved, such as sexual abuse. People who have PTSD will experience “feelings of intense fear, helplessness or horror” and tend to replay the traumatic event(s) over and over, so that their intense anxiety condition becomes locked in.

The spectrum of responses to the experience of trauma is very wide – from numbness and inertia to aggression and violence. People who experience trauma can become withdrawn and avoid interactions; experience de-sensitisation to the people and situations they have to deal with; experience on-going depression; become cynical or distrustful in their interactions; or experience a profound and enduring sadness. They may question their self-worth and accomplishments; experience difficulty in relaxing and sleeping; or be overcome by a deep sense of grief (where someone significant to them has died).

The psychological effects of a physical injury, car accident or injury as a child can easily be overlooked. In their Guide, How Trauma Affects the Brain, the Lanier Law Group provides a comprehensive discussion of the psychological effects of such traumatic events and discusses various modalities for healing from trauma. Their Guide also covers PTSD after an injury and following service in combat areas.

Accessing our internal resources

In a previous post, I wrote about how to use the R.A.I.N. meditation process to deal with fear and anxiety. However, in cases of trauma and intense grief, we may not be able to plumb the depths of our feelings because the experience would be too painful and/or cause flashbacks to the traumatic event(s).

Tara Brach, in the course on the Power of Awareness, described how to access internal resources to cope initially with the psychological pain experienced with trauma. Drawing on her own experience with trauma victims and sound research in the area, she suggests a number of ways to resource ourselves:

Physical grounding – this involves getting in touch with the feeling of our feet on the ground and our buttocks on the chair. The physical sensation of contact with the ground or chair is important because it enables us to link the sense of safety and security through sitting or standing with our psychological experience.
Breathing deeply and slowly – this could begin with lengthening our in-breath and out-breath and move to mindful breathing, which includes paying attention to the space between.
Touch – touching our heart or stomach with some loving gesture that brings warmth to relax our body.
Talking to ourselves – we can use comforting and supportive words while engaged in conversation with ourselves.
Envisaging our allies – there may be relatives or friends in our life who provide very strong emotional support and constant affirmation of our self-worth. There are others such as members of a support group for a chronic illness or for loss of a child or loved one. Bringing these people to mind together with the feelings of kindness and encouragement they engender, can build our inner resources to cope with trauma.
Revisiting a place of peace or relaxation – we can do this physically or just by visioning what it was like to be in our favourite place. It could be by the bay or at the seaside, in the mountains or on the deck in our home-anywhere that gives us strength, renews our spirit and intensifies our feelings of security.

Whatever process we use for inner resourcing, it is important to get in touch with what positive effects we are feeling in our body, as well as in our minds. Tara Brach, in the Power of Awareness course, encourages us to use resourcing meditations based on the above listed pathways to tap into, and strengthen, our inner resources. She argues that these meditations are a true refuge, unlike the false refuges of drugs or alcohol.

Being able to deal with trauma through the R.A.I.N. meditation process (plumbing the depths of our fear or grief) may take months of resourcing ourselves before we can confront the depths of our emotions, but Tara’s own counselling experience with people who have suffered trauma (including PTSD) confirms that it is possible to emerge from the depths to live a balanced and happy life.

As we grow in mindfulness through resourcing meditations, we strengthen our inner resources to cope with the profound psychological effects of a trauma and build up our capacity to deal with the resultant debilitating emotions.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of Maialisa on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Facing the Fear Within

We have explored the R.A.I.N. meditation process in a preliminary manner. Now we will look at how R.A.I.N. can help us deal with those deep-seated fears that take control of us, reduce our capacity to live life fully and prevent us from showing others loving kindness.

The disabling effects of fear and anxiety

Jaak Panksepp, author of Affective Neuroscience, discovered that young rats who had played and frolicked together became totally inhibited when a piece of cat’s hair was introduced into their cage – creating an immediate fear response and disabling anxiety. Jaak believed that in-depth insight into the behaviour of animals helped us to better understand human emotions.

Anna Steinhenge explored whether fear and the associated anxiety induced a similar inhibiting effect in humans. She found that in competitive situations where people viewed the outcome with positive anticipation, they were readily able to access clear thinking and creativity; in contrast, where people were anxious about the outcome, their creativity and critical faculties were impeded, and they tended to engage in cheating or unethical behaviour to win. One only has to look at the behaviour of the leadership group in the Australian Cricket team during the third test in South Africa to confirm this perspective – they were anxious that they could not win the third test, when the score was tied at one test each, so they engaged in ball tampering.

Using the R.A.I.N. meditation process to face and conquer the fear within

Recognise the fear

The first step is to recognise the fear for what it is – to face it fully, understand how it impacts our body and impedes our mind. Avoiding facing the fear only makes it stronger and weakens our capacity to manage the fear and its disabling effects.

Kayakers, for example, have shown that when caught up in a whirlpool that is sucking them deeper into the water, they need to relax and go with the direction of the sucking force, rather than fighting the whirlpool which only saps their strength. They need to go to the bottom of the whirlpool to survive. So too with fear, we need to access the depths of the fear itself before we can be freed from its inhibiting effects.

Accepting the existence of fear

We need to accept that the fear is part of our life but learn how to gradually disassociate from it so that we are not identified with it. Tara Brach tells the story of a woman suffering from PTSD who, while sitting on a park bench, envisaged her fear beside her while she continued to explore her connectedness to nature – to the birds, flowers and trees surrounding her.

Investigating our fear

Tara suggests that we explore the nature of our fear and even question what it is like, where it lies within us, how deep and dense it is. She suggests that we explore our relationship with fear and determine what fear is expecting of us and how we want to relate to our fear. We could question where fear resides in our body and how it manifests itself through pain and physical disturbance – headaches, muscle soreness, cramps, twitching or shaking.

Nurturing ourselves through fear

Trying to discount fear by purely rational processes will not remove the fear but only make it go underground, away from our consciousness. We need to see the fear for what it is in all its manifestations but treat ourselves with kindness. This may mean pulling away temporarily from facing our fear and its intensity to rebuild our resources and strengthen our resolve. This is a gentle way to treat ourselves if we become overwhelmed when facing the depth of our fear. After rebuilding our resources, we can resume the P.A.I.N. meditation process by again grounding our body and mind through mindful breathing.

Plumbing the depths

Tara Brach suggests that the P.A.I.N. meditation process can be employed to handle any deeply-felt, negative emotion such as grief, anguish or self-disgust, as well as fear. In the course on the Power of Awareness, Tara discussed Leaning into Fear and highlighted the process of facing fear by quoting David Whyte’s poem, The Well of Grief, which also uses the analogy of “plumbing the depths”:

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,

turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,

will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering,

the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.

As we grow in mindfulness through the P.A.I.N. meditation process, we develop the courage to plumb the depths of our fear and enable ourselves to be free of its inhibitions and disabling effects. This process of inner exploration will gradually unearth the depths of our internal resources and capacity to handle deeply-felt emotions such as fear and grief.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of AdinaVoicu on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.