Trauma Training Tip
Summer time. A very special time of year. Flowers are giving way to fruit. It is a time of fullness and growing maturity. The sun is at its height. The energy of the heart is its most vibrant.
The Fire Element mirrors the relational, parasympathetic function of the ventral vagus nerve. The ventral vagus supports us in resolving conflicts in the context of relationship. It provides that relational “brake” on that “fight or flight” sympathetic response to a sense of threat.
The ventral vagus is the primary brake on sympathetic arousal in primates. Without healthy ventral vagal function, our “fight or flight” response is untempered, and gives rise to violence instead of curiosity when there is something new in our environment. We no longer wonder, “is that a rope or snake?” We live convinced that it’s a snake. The ventral vagus provides us with the capacity to resolve conflicts in the context of relationship.
When it is functioning well, we can:
- Disagree and remain in relationship
- Sublimate primal urges to bite, kick,
- Resist or oppose a person or a phenomenon without contracting or bracing against it
- Experience balance and regulation in every autonomic “invisible” function – like our assimilation of nutrients, regulation of hormones, and immune function.
The ventral vagus and the Fire Element are most available to us in the summer. It is a great time to focus on supporting its balance and regulation. Providers can cultivate ventral vagal function in their clients through the creation of a sense of safety in relationship. Acupuncturists may find that clients are especially vulnerable in their Heart, Small Intestine, Triple Burner or Heart Protector – the organs of the Fire Element.
What helps build the ventral vagus? As we get vaccinated, take our masks off and begin to gather again safely inside and outside with others – you may feel a bit of challenge in your capacity for relationship. The first time I took my mask off in a restaurant, I felt like I was taking my pants down!
If you are feeling tender about your capacity for connection, think about joining in on activities that elicit joy and a sense of connection – and involve movement, rhythm and the cultivation of relationship. Things like:
- Team sports
- Community choirs
- Playing an instrument in a band or orchestra
- Participating in local theatre
- Dancing with a partner or partners
Let yourself experience playing well with others! The more we enjoy engaging with others, the more our Ventral Vagal capacity is built.
Alaine’s Two Cents
I hear people saying, “this feels odd,” “I don’t know how to behave,” “there’s a part of me that liked being reclusive this past year.”
Our Ventral Vagus nerve has taken a hit!
Children may especially need experiences that are steady, slow, titrated, and relational for their re-entry. They may need your assurance of safety as well as your presence and companionship. There’s healing that needs to happen – and it can be as simple as jumping rope or playing catch in the park, line-dancing or doing puzzles with a friend on a rainy day.
Check This Out!
I thought I would share this Chinese folktale, “Holding Up The Sky,” with you.
One day an elephant saw a hummingbird lying flat on its back on the ground. The bird’s tiny feet were raised up into the air.
“What on earth are you doing, Hummingbird?” asked the elephant.
The hummingbird replied.
“I have heard that the sky might fall today.
If that should happen,
I am ready to do my bit in holding it up.”
The elephant laughed and mocked the tiny bird.
“Do you think THOSE tiny little feet could hold up the SKY?”
“Not alone,” admitted the hummingbird.
“But each must do what he can.
And this is what I can do.”
– Margaret Reed MacDonald, Three Minute Tales: Stories from around the World to Tell or Read When Time Is Short (Little Rock, AR: August House, 2004), 145.
I love its message so much that I used it in the dedication of my book, The Tao of Trauma, and thanked: all the hummingbirds in our families, communities, and workplaces; in the halls of government and commerce; on the land, sea, and air. Wherever you are, we thank you for your service.
We each do our part, and together we create a more sustainable, and livable world for ourselves and each other.
And now – check out what these real life hummingbirds have done to protect the environment around the construction of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline in Western Canada by slowing down construction, giving environmentalists more time to pitch their case before British Columbian officials.
Gotta love hummingbirds – wherever they are!
Clinical Curiosity
Where is your clinical curiosity carrying you?
Send me a question or two and I will explore them with readers in this corner next month.
Q.
My patient is a non-binary person. They use the “appease” or “feign” management style in the presence of perceived threat. I can see how this style inhibits their sense of their own power, and blocks their capacity to cultivate interoceptive awareness. Do you have thoughts about how to help them cultivate a sense of personal power around their right to assert their needs and wants – and maybe even more importantly – their interoceptive awareness of what their true preference is?
A.
So glad you asked this. The “appease” or “feign” management style is distinct from “fight” or “flight” as an approach to threat. When someone has a sense of not being welcomed in their tribe – perhaps as a member of a marginalized group, they are using a survival strategy of appeasing those in power in order to not get hurt. Unfortunately however, it comes with a cost – which is the loss of a sense of autonomy, agency, and power. If habituated, people can lose track of noticing their preferences – Do I want to see this movie or that movie? Have my sandwich on wheat or rye? Give my consent for a medical treatment or hold back?
There are considerable ethical issues for providers around the feign response. Is your client’s consent both informed and anchored in their embodied sense of self? Can they so “no” to someone they perceive to have more power? Are they over-riding their underlying comfort when they say yes to an acupuncturists needles? Are they able to be present, in their tissues, in a massage treatment that asks them to disrobe?
I suggest the exercise “May I touch you” as a helpful one to explore consent, interoception, and the experience of feign/appease. Sit with your patient, help them anchor and ground themselves. Ask “May I touch you” – and invite them to notice their answer and how it feels. Protect their experience of the relational field whether they answer “yes” or “no.” Practice tick-tock, interoceptive awareness, and growing regulation as you continue to ask “May I touch you” – and inviting them to notice how their answer might change with time.
Here’s a resource from Betty Martin on exploring touch and consent. She has thoughtful and open-hearted approaches to touch and consent that focus on enjoying our skin. She’s worth listening to!