Trauma Training Tip
May Day, or the Gaelic festival of Beltane marks the mid-way point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It marks the beginning of Summer. It was recognized by Celtic pagans as a time of peak fertility and for planting.
We too see a noticeable difference in the Earth’s energy compared to the beginning of Spring. The days are longer with the sun setting much later, and here in the mid-Atlantic, it has grown considerably warmer. At the Spring Equinox, new life was just beginning to emerge, but here, at the beginning of May, there is no denying that the Earth has been pushed from its tentative new beginning into full awakening.
Our Taoist ancestors would agree that we are at the beginning of Summer, a time of peak fertility and planting. They taught us that living in harmony with the seasons is the route to health and inner regulation.
Just as nature is coming into its peak fertility, we can look to Summer and the Fire Element for support to move towards what is fertile and full and expansive in ourselves. In the winter, the longings of our heart were hibernating, held deeply and quietly within. In the Spring they began to take shape and form. We could “see” them in our imagination. The Summer will help them manifest – just like the berries on the blueberry bushes have moved from flower to fruit in the last week, our plans and desires are moving from beautiful images to tangible manifestation.
The Fire season is the season of all matters of the Heart, including the Pericardium, also known as the Heart Protectoror the Circulation Sex official. It is responsible for “guiding the subjects in their joys and pleasures.” It helps us connect and commune with others. Like the Beltane celebrators of old, we come out of the dark and quiet into dancing around the fire and finding connection and intimacy.
In Western terms, we could say that humanity’s need for cultivating the Ventral Vagus nerve is supported in the Fire season. Coming out of the pandemic and its forced isolation has resulted in an epidemic of loneliness. We can use the energy of the Fire season to help us connect with neighbors and friends in summer sports, outdoor picnics, and family reunions.
The stronger and more nuanced our Ventral Vagus is, the better able we will be to mitigate anger or frustration arising from our Sympathetic Nervous System. We will be better able to see humanity in others and use diplomacy rather than violence to solve the normal conflicts that arise in life.
Please – go dancing, play volleyball, have the neighbors over for a picnic and play under the sacred Sun that is the source of all life. We will all be better for it.
Alaine’s Two Cents
The Ventral Vagus nerve mirrors the function of the Fire Element in Chinese medicine. It provides the relational “brake” on Sympathetic Arousal. The Sympathetic system has no social intelligence. It is there to protect and defend – at all costs. We need our Ventral Vagus, our Fire Element, to help us find the humanity in the person we are angry with – and to give us the breath of time that helps us step back and consider a diplomatic solution instead of an impulsive violent one to a conflict.
We are witnessing an epidemic of gun violence in the United States. Our nation needs to cultivate its Ventral Vagus – to cultivate its capacity to recognize humanity in people who may appear different from ourselves and to find a way to connect rather than divide.
We can all help by making good use of the Fire Element and the energy of Summer by being kind, cultivating relationship and connection, and spreading joy.
Check This Out!
Tao of Trauma clinical assistant, Ryan Gallagher, has a new offering – a series of six guided, body-based meditations. Ryan is an acupuncturist and an embodiment guide based in Asheville, NC – and available to all of us – near and far – via these video and audio recordings. These opportunities are rooted in the East-Meets-West healing principles of the Tao of Trauma. Beautiful.
The meditations are:
• Held, Nourished & Connected (11 min)
• “Sinking” Your Awareness (30 min)
• Whole-Body Breathing (24 min)
• Inhabiting Your Inner Organs (29 min)
• Polishing Your Five Inner Gems (30 min)
• At Home In Your Tissues (34 min)
Here’s a link for more info.
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.
I am a body-worker and a Tao of Trauma student. My question is about the experience of a patient at her first session with me. My assessment was that I would be by-passing her boundaries and requiring her to over-ride her embodied sense of self if we went straight to the table.
I attempted to guide her to be more present in her tissues as a way to “plow the field before planting the seed” with some of the boundary exercises we have explored in class. I felt my touch would have greater impact if she experienced it from a place of greater embodiment and presence in her tissues. The boundary exercises were quite challenging for her. She became quite activated. This confirmed my sense of how wrong it would have been to take her directly to the table. We worked with her activation, but there was an underlying sense of opposition between us that got in the way of our attunement. We never got to the table.
She expected to receive a touch session. She didn’t feel that she got what she came for – and was angry with me.
Do you have thoughts about how I might have handled this situation better, and how I might make a repair with her?
A.
So important! Thank you for your reflections.
First off, I want to acknowledge your assessment skills. If you were to have taken her straight to the table, she didn’t have an adequate sense of her own embodiment to make (as much) use of your work as she might have after your boundary work with her. Your story is a great reflection on the need of all clinicians to cultivate skills to recognize and work with the dysregulation we see in trauma survivors.
It seems that the challenge in this session was in the consent process. She came with one idea, you had a different idea, but you didn’t have a meeting of the minds (and bodies) about what would best serve her.
Consent is not the piece of paper that many professional licensing boards require prior to starting work with a new patient. Consent is a process of listening deeply to what we hear, what we see, and what we can offer. It is a fully transparent back-and-forth discussion with a goal of deeply understanding our patient, inviting their buy-in for our work, and making adjustments on our plan, based on their feedback.
Even the best work – I’m sure your invitation for her to explore her embodied sense of her boundaries was technically highly skilled – will not serve if our patient doesn’t understand what we are doing or why or how we think it will benefit them. They may feel “hoodwinked,” manipulated, or not met.
Secure relationships are not rooted in never making mistakes – they are rooted in making repairs after breaches. I suggest you name the “oops” in your interaction and apologize for it. Most trauma survivors have had lots of “oops” in their clinical interactions – but may have never received an apology, or as thoughtful a one as you will make. You are getting to know her nervous system, you will likely make more “oopsies” – but you are demonstrating your willingness to be humble, to learn, and to repair – and to stick with her. Invaluable to a trauma survivor.
So glad she has you.