Trauma Training Tips
 We are experiencing traumatic contagion in our communities and on our streets. It’s just plain tragically painful to witness. Our primal ancestors survived by virtue of the members of their tribe who could hear a saber-toothed tiger in the bush. Evolution selected for people who had the capacity to experience resonant connection with this special member’s message of fear and alarm and appropriately respond to such threats. We have inherited a proclivity for traumatic contagion. Like everything, there are two aspects to this phenomenon. Such contagion can help communities come together and survive threats. However, when the fear is more about discomfort than life-threat – it becomes corrosive, contracting, and life-threatening. The unnecessary release of stress chemistry affects our health, our capacity to accurately distinguish friend and foe, and our ability to live in community with people who may be different from us in some superficial way. Our signaling center for threat is in our Kidney/Adrenal system. The command to respond to such messages of threat is in our Heart. By cultivating our capacity to distinguish discomfort from threat – and orienting towards experiences of connection and relationship we can work with this Kidney/Heart dynamic and create vibrations for healing that I promise you are more powerful than those vibrations of traumatic contagion. All mammals co-regulate with other mammals that are more regulated. We become more regulated simply by being in proximity of other, more regulated bodies. Transforming our nation’s trauma history requires expanding our capacity to distinguish discomfort from threat, cultivate relationships across differences and support the vibration coming from more regulated and peaceful hearts rather than the fear-filled signaling arising from contracted and wounded Kidney/Adrenal systems. Want to support the healing of our nation? Look for ways that you can support your own inner regulation. Find experiences of resonant coherence with those you perceive as “other”. Trauma, like love, is vibrational. Look for ways to cultivate a peaceful and coherent heart. It will help transform the discomfort or fear in your Kidney/Adrenal system with the heart’s gift of equanimity and whole-body regulation. We can all do our part. Our nation’s healers can help! |
| Alaine’s Two Cents |
 Our nation is a trauma survivor and needs its healers! The transformation of our culture cannot happen interventions that are exclusively in the political or educational arena. It will rest on and be supported by the work of healers. Those healers might have degrees in the healing arts, or they might be coaches or choir directors or teachers or a neighbor who is simply kind. We’ve all got a role play. Trauma, like love, is vibrational. Let’s invite 2021 in with the vibrational imprint of “love one another”. |
| Check This Out! |
 My acupuncture pal, Leah Turner, has started The Whole Five Fifths podcast. She describes herself in this way: “I’m a practicing acupuncturist and former lawyer. I’ve always been a healer. This podcast is an expression of my calling. I’m called to shine light in the darkness. I’m called to amplify the healing potential that lives in us all.” “I am a biracial woman who identifies as Black. One group of my ancestors contributed to the violent oppression of the other. Both groups need healing. That is my mission — to heal on behalf of the Ancestors, so that my children’s children can truly be free.”Here’s her first podcast: Whole Five Fifths I celebrate Leah’s passion for supporting cultural shifts through healing – and can’t wait to hear more on the Whole Five Fifths podcast! Here’s more information: https://www.wholefivefifths.com/ |
| Clinical Curiosity |
| Where is your clinical curiosity carrying you? Q. My patient is in her mid-20’s. She’s had “strange, rare and peculiar” physical symptoms all her life – including headaches, weight fluctuations, restless legs, tendonitis, hair loss, light-headedness, elevated heart rate and extreme fatigue. She’s wiry and tight in her body and has a simmering undercurrent of irritation. She’s recently been diagnosed with POTS – Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. She had a troubled birth — she was premature and had to spend several weeks in an incubator with limited physical contact. Her parents divorced when she was 8 years old, she was abused by her stepfather, had a rocky relationship with her Mom and says she “never felt cared for” as a child. Got any advice? A. Great question. It sounds like some of her early life experiences may have created a vulnerability or propensity for a diagnosis like POTS. The Kidney/Adrenal system is the signaling center for threat – and the Heart is the command center for action in response to that signal. They work intimately together. POTS is a classic example of dysregulation between the Kidney and the Heart. As a small child her Kidney/Adrenal system likely went into high alarm on a regular basis – demanding her Heart to send a command to her body to save her life. Her Heart, unable to sustain the Kidney’s demand for constant high arousal, had to be slowed down in order to survive. Her Heart’s capacity for equanimity and regulation was compromised. Thankfully, repair for such unfortunate life-beginnings is possible! It is critically important that her body have an opportunity to build its capacity for managing stress. She needs support to move from a habituated pattern of high arousal in her Kidney/Heart axis. She needs help from someone like you to have embodied experiences of safety and relationship.  She can also use micro-waved yoga eye pillows or hot water bottles under her kidneys. You can also either virtually or actually place your hand under her Kidney/Adrenal to bring it comfort – and soften the braced and hard state that gives rise to high levels of adrenalin and other stress chemistry. Guide her attention to experiences of softening, comfort, safety. POTS is a very challenging diagnosis to manage and live with. Underneath the diagnosis is dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system, with a profound impact on blood flow, blood pressure and circulation. Her disturbed balance between blood pressure and heart rate that is emblematic of POTS will also be served by adequate hydration, good nourishment, management of salt intake and appropriate exercise. Good luck. I’m glad she’s got you. Send me a question and I’ll share in this corner next month! |
The Tao of Trauma – Now Available in Audio Reviews of The Tao of Trauma are really helpful for exposing others to this body of work and healing for our world. If you have read it – and are willing to share your experience with the world – please submit a review on Amazon here; on Goodreads here; or on Books-A-Million here. Thank you! |
| Upcoming Trainings with Alaine Duncan |
 Alaine D. Duncan, M.Ac., L.Ac., Dipl.Ac., Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Traumatic Stress Response: Orientation, History and Context – Live and Free! In partnership with the European-based TCMAcademy (https://www.tcm.ac.) Sunday, January 24, 2021. 11 am – 12:30 pm EST. CEU’s pending. Explore: * Acupuncture in public health settings. * An East-meets-West exploration of the Central Nervous System and the 3 Jiao. * The Sympathetic and Parasympathetic nervous systems seen and the law of Yin and Yang. * Acupuncture as vibrational medicine and trauma as vibrational illness. More info and to register: click here Using the Diaphragm System to Restore Balance and Regulation in the Pelvic Floor: An East Meets West Approach Hosted by the European-based TCMAcademy (https://www.tcm.ac.) The diaphragm model is borrowed from osteopathy. There are 7 primary diaphragms, distributed up and down the body from the plantar diaphragm in the sole of the foot to the Calvaria at the dome of the head. It is a useful framework for working with movement, brace, and collapse anywhere in the energy body of trauma survivors, including the pelvis.  Two Parts: February 2 and 9, 2021 10 – 11:30 am EST Early bird rate $70 until January 15; $90 thereafter. These sessions will be recorded and provided to all registered participants. More information: click here Register for Pelvicacademy: click here FEE: Early bird price $70 until January 15, 2021; $90 USD after. Tao of Trauma – all 2020 in-person classes have been postponed to 2021. The remaining 3 modules (Wood/Mobilize A Response; Fire/Restore Coherence; and Earth/Digest the Gristle) from 2020 in 2021. Anyone who has taken any previous Tao of Trauma modules is welcome to register and join either the Silver Spring or the Ojai, CA cohorts. Here is scheduling information and registration: click here Online Coursework with Alaine Duncan in Partnership with Acupuncturists Without Borders Go to https://acuwithoutborders.org/online-classes/ Twelve Points for Restoration and Balance Ethics in the Treatment of Trauma Survivors. Register Today |