Trauma Training Tip
We are heading rapidly to the Summer Solstice and the height of the season of the Fire Element.
The other 4 Elements have 2 organs to help organize their various purposes and functions. The Fire Element needs 4! Matters of the Heart are quite complicated for us to manage!
The Pericardium – also called the Heart Protector or the Circulation-Sex Official is like an envelope that protects the Heart. It “guides the subjects in their joys and pleasures” and helps us find and enjoy dynamic sexual expression and pleasure. It is especially important where there has been relationship-based trauma.
The Triple Heater – also called the Triple Burner or the Triple Energizer mirrors the function of the connective tissue. It wraps and enfolds everything and helps us create separations and connections within ourselves and with others. It distributes the Qi we received at conception – and the warmth we need to make all body functions perform just right. Especially important to connect with where there has been a global, whole-body trauma experience – like a blast injury or a steep fall.
The Small Intestine “separates the pure from the impure” – and only allows the pure to get to the Heart. In our digestion, it passes the impure to the Large Intestine for elimination and supports assimilation of all the good stuff! In our interactions, it helps us choose what stories to listen to, what stories to pass on to others, and helps us discern what NOT to listen to or share. It supports our Heart to live with integrity and honesty, unpolluted by toxic expressions or experiences.
Our Heart is known as the Supreme Controller. It sits in its chamber and beats out a steady rhythm that provides order and regulation for all the organs of the body. If one or more of these other Fire functions is unable to protect the Heart from a sense of alarm – its chamber will be disturbed. It will experience a sense of life threat – and will command the whole body to respond to that message with a rapid, erratic Heart-beat. Once it knows that the threat is over, it will return to equanimity – and send regular, even and quiet messages via the blood to every cell and organ.
If our Heart is unable to access this message of success, we won’t know that “it’s over.” We will continue to feel threatened and what was “there and then” will continue to feel like “here and now.”
There are 5 resource words for the 5 Elements. I encourage you to touch with the energy of the just right word for the 5 Element survivor type that matches your patient’s energy body. You will meet your patients with more precision – and offer them the just right vibration for repair. The 5 resource words are: Respect (Metal), Protect (Water), Encourage (Wood), Love (Fire), and Support (Earth).
Love is a very complex vibration – and includes a wide variety of expressions. Clinicians can get in trouble with ourselves or our patients if we communicate “sticky” love or “sexual” love with our patients.
The essence of the love I am referring to is something akin to Agape love – “goodwill, benevolence, and willful delight in the object of love.” When you touch your Fire Survivor Type patient – touch with this expansive expression of love. You may be working with their connective tissue, their mediastinum, or respiratory diaphragm. If you touch them with the energy of Love, you will be helping to restore their Heart’s ability to know that “it’s over” and helping to guide them back to equanimity and regulation.
Alaine’s Two Cents
Meet ‘n Greet events to explore the 2024-25 Tao of Trauma series
Are you thinking about joining the 2024-25 Tao of Trauma series, but are wondering if it’s a fit for you?
There are a lot of wonderful trauma trainings available. The Tao of Trauma is unique in that it integrates Western neurophysiology and Polyvagal Theory with Chinese medicine. This diagnostic framework allows clinicians to see beyond general dysregulation to more discrete assessments of brace or collapse in particular tissues. This “bottom-up” approach explores the “issues in the tissues” that may have arisen before there was language, and are wreaking havoc with our body, mind, and spirit.
Join Alaine Duncan at an on-line “Meet ‘n Greet”. Ask your questions, get your answers, and hear some stories from the Tao of Trauma community. FREE!
- Sunday, June 16 – 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific – RSVP here
- Sunday, July 14 – 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific – RSVP here
- Sunday, August 18 – 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific – RSVP here
Acupuncturists, bodyworkers, medical providers, and somatic-psychotherapists welcome.
Classes start this fall and space is limited!
Check This Out!
Sacred Restoration – A Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Healing Intensive
Wanderwood Farm, Nobleboro, Maine
August 27-September 3, 2024
Sacred Restoration is brought to us by Tao of Trauma student, Alexandra Whitney. It is a unique in-person seven-day Somatic Experiencing® trauma healing intensive program for people suffering from PTSD, C-PTSD, and other traumatic stress related conditions. Experts from the SE community will partner with providers of complementary healing modalities to create a safe and nurturing experience that will guide participants toward unlocking their innate ability to heal from trauma, facilitating the repair of the autonomic nervous system and synchronizing the heart-mind-body, while increasing a healthy sense of self and inner balance.
More info here.
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 deeply soulful person. They have worked with me for a long time and processed the many dynamics of a deep attachment wound arising from the death of their Mom in childbirth. How would you recommend connecting with their heart at the level it longs for?
A: What a lovely question for the summer season! I suggest you think about connecting with their mediastinum. The mediastinum is a membrane of connective tissue that divides the chest cavity and provides a chamber for the heart. It is continuous with the connective tissue that lines the medial edge of pleural cavities, respiratory diaphragm, shoulder diaphragm, sternum, and spinal column.
On its way up from the chest to the head, it surrounds the thyroid, thymus, and pituitary – and thus brings a regulating vibration to these important endocrinological and metabolic structures. It provides the physiological foundation for the unity of the Heart and Mind in Chinese medicine with its extension with cranial membranes.
The innervation of the mediastinum by the Ventral vagal is physiological basis for co-regulation of the metabolic processes that occur in play and social engagement. It has very complex physiology – it touches and can impact many different systems – lots of moving parts. Do when patient is prepared to engage with self and others with an open heart. It sounds like your patient is ready.
You can connect with the mediastinum in many different locations. One especially good one is at the tip of the xiphoid process – at an acupuncture point called “Dove’s Tail.” Let your attention go up towards their Heart – and let your hand embody the vibration of love that is the expansive “goodwill, benevolence, and willful delight” in their presence.
Thanks for writing.