Trauma Training Tip
The Northern hemisphere has transitioned through the nadir of Winter’s darkness towards the time of Spring’s greater light. In the cosmology of Chinese medicine, Yin has met its depth and is turning to Yang. The sap has started to awaken and rise in the trees. It’s a potent time of transformation.
Those who live in countries that celebrated the Chinese New Year on January 22nd have welcomed the year of the Yin Rabbit – who will emerge on February 4th. (If you are interested in more info – check out CT Holman’s free presentation on the year of the Yin Rabbit, on the TCMAcademy website.)
It may not feel much like Spring – but it is stirring deep within the Earth in the movement of its relationship to the sun. We can take this lesson from nature, and rest in knowing that Yin will transform into Yang and likewise Yang will transform into Yin. We can also know that if we can stay with a “freeze” state long enough, and have the right conditions of support and safety, we can trust that it will transform. This is a powerful lesson for understanding the impact and transformation of traumatic stress in survivors.
Here’s a few more musings on the Law of Yin and Yang, from the perspective of the Tao of Trauma:
- The opposition of Yin and Yang
Tao of Trauma principle: Tick-Tock supports the emergence and regulation of Qi.
- Qi emerges in facilitating the movement betweenstates of greater regulation and greater dysregulation
- This mutual opposition is the foundation for both movement and regulation
- Qi’s functions to transform, transport, hold, raise, protect, and warm are the foundation for life
- The interdependence of Yin and Yang
Tao of Trauma principle: The Parasympathetic System exists in dynamic and interdependent relationship with the Sympathetic System.
- Yin cannot exist without Yang, nor can Yang exist without Yin – dark does not exist without light; day without night; summer without winter.
- Yin and Yang each have inherent value. They exist in a relationship of both interdependence and opposition.
- The inter-consuming relationship of Yin and Yang
Tao of Trauma principle: Things have to be in relationship in order to transform into something new
- The two aspects of Yin and Yang are not fixed. Qi constantly moves between states of condensation and dispersion. Life is the aggregation of Qi into form (Yin) and death is the disaggregation of Qi into spirit (Yang)
- When in regulation Yin & Yang are in a continual state of interdependent consumption – night consumes day, day consumes night. “Cat consumes mouse; mouse becomes cat.”
- The inter-transforming relationship of Yin and Yang
Tao of Trauma principle: We can trust our body’s inherent capacity to transform activation into de-activation.
- Extreme Yin will necessarily produce Yang and extreme Yang will produce Yin; i.e. severe heat gives rise to chills, and severe cold gives rise to fever.
- Given the proper conditions, activation will become de-activation, a seed becomes a plant, an egg becomes a chicken – because they are in relationship with each other.
Alaine’s Two Cents
Other agrarian cultures also recognize the power of this poignant time of transition.
Imbolc is a Gaelic traditional festival, also known as the Feast Day of the Irish pagan Goddess Brigid and/or the Christian Saint Brigid, the patroness Saint of Ireland. It is marked on February 1&2.
Imbolc is the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The word Imbolc means “in the belly of the mother” because the seeds of spring are beginning to stir in the belly of Mother Earth – another expression of the movement from stillness of winter to the activity of spring, from Yin to Yang.
Celebrants may make a Saint Brigid’s Cross and hang them over doors and windows to invoke Brigid’s blessings, and protection against fire, illness, and evil spirits.
Check This Out!
Ryan Gallagher, Tao of Trauma Assistant from Asheville, NC, offers two on-line courses
Homecoming – An Online Course for Nurturing Your Nervous System. 4 weekly sessions, offered throughout the year.
Elemental Movements – An online Course for Tapping Into Your Vital Energy. 5 weekly sessions, next cohort starts February 22, 2023.
More info and register here: https://www.inhabithealingarts.com/courses
Contact: ryan@inhabithealingarts.com
Avdeep Bahra, Tao of Trauma Clinical Assistant, from Ontario, Canada offers a Somatic Healing Space for BIPOC Folks
A monthly, virtual group starts Sat. February 4th, 2023 (10 am-12 noon ET). It is based on somatic principles, the cycles of nature and the Tao of Trauma. Join for one session – or the whole series.
The intention of this group is to build relationships, community, and healing. In this space, you get to be more like yourself and touch into your true nature.
More information & Registration: https://innerhealing.ca/group-programs
Contact: avdeep.bahra@gmail.com
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 woman in her 50’s. She’s very quiet, very self-effacing, and lacks self-confidence about her contributions to her family or community. She had authoritarian, even dominating parents. She never got to make her own choices or have her capacity to make a good choice for herself cultivated. I get the feeling that underneath her patience is a lot of anger, maybe even rage. Her quality of life is compromised by how she suppresses her impulses to show up. She also suffers digestive upset, has to be very careful about her diet – avoiding gluten and dairy and has many food allergies or intolerances. Do you have ideas about how to help her?
A.
So glad she has you!
The more that you can help her embody an experience of feeling protected, resourced, or safe – the more likely she will be able to find her voice and her impulses to express herself more boldly. This is the movement from Water (freeze) to Wood (mobilization). She will also bring movement and thawing to the collapse/freeze that appears to be in her guts. She needs this in order to find her capacity to assert herself. That experience of self-assertion was thwarted too often once upon a time – and will benefit so much from a reparative experience.
Her mobilization response, thwarted in childhood, lives under her reserved, self-effacing presentation. So many of us have lived with thwarted attempts to mobilize our capacity to protect or defend ourselves – or someone weaker or less empowered than we are. This is the benevolence of the Wood Element – its capacity to protect and defend ourselves and others.
I recommend the Kidney/Adrenal hold. Use the principles of Tick-Tock to facilitate her interoceptive experience of movement or activation. Help her experience these sensations and experience in the context of safety. Using tick-tock between activation and de-activation will help her create an experience of movement out of a collapsed or frozen state and into the mobilization that is behind or underneath it. Her growing embodied awareness will help restore the presence of Qi. Once Qi has returned, then it can provide the protection, warmth, transformation, transportation, holding, raising, protection, and warmth that are the foundation for a full life.
She will function more fully in her relationships and in her gut.