Trauma Training Tip
Photo by Johannes Plenio
We (thankfully) have moved into Spring, or the Wood element in the Northern Hemisphere. In the seasonal self-protective response, Wood calls forward mobilization. The yin Wood organ is the Liver, known as the General of the Armed Forces and the yang organ is the Gall Bladder, known as the Official of Wise Judgment. Together, they are responsible for strategizing and implementing our fight or flight response in the presence of perceived danger. Whew there’s a lot of that going on!
If our patient’s mobilization response was thwarted or unavailable to them at a critical moment in their past, it will remain in their tissues. The Spring may support these body memories to emerge. Helping these responses complete will support the smooth movement of Qi and the benevolent nature of the Wood to emerge.
The anger or rage associated with Wood is powerful Qi! Acupuncturists are in a unique position to help Wood survivor types harness and focus this power, and use it to thaw incomplete or collapsed mobilization responses. These hidden-away and frozen states may be misdirecting and misinforming our clients in ways that are destructive to themselves and others. Their families and our communities will benefit from the vision, leadership, and benevolence these survivors can bring when their true nature blooms with enhanced restoration and balance. Look for system-wide coherence as you work with the correspondences of the Wood – the blood, eyes, tendons, ligaments, and joints – and the anger, hope, and benevolence that shape the actions we take. We can be more clear in our plans for resistance when our Wood is unencumbered by previous threats.
We are witnessing massive “mobilization” responses on the front pages of our newspapers and in our communities. I keep coming back to the words: Our nation needs its healers. Here are some of the ways we can support healthy mobilization and serve our nation from the perspective of threat physiology:
- We can help move Wood energy into the Fire. If our patients focus on their mobilization response, without directing that powerful energy to build the Fire and enhance the Heart’s Shen, they risk losing their sense of relationship and companionship on the journey. They also risk losing their capacity to make thoughtful decisions. The passion behind their mobilization response will turn into its opposite. Benevolence, the true nature of the Wood is lost.
- We can support mutually beneficial relationships between Wood and Earth. Part of full-on mobilization includes sending a message to the Spleen and Stomach to shut down. Digestion, while critical for long-term health, is irrelevant when there is a perception of immediate life threat, and all our energy is needed to power fight or flight. Life can become one big belly-ache! Our patients risk losing their ability to digest the gristle in this chapter of their lives, transform their experience — and harvest the lessons available to them. We have much to digest and much to learn. We can support access to these important functions in the Earth.
- We can support the Kidneys to use fear wisely. Helping our patients move out of certainty and conclusion about the future and into curiosity and “don’t know” will support empowering their mobilization response and will nourish the critical relationship of the Kidney with the Heart. We can help people find both deep quiet and resourceful power inside themselves. We can help keep the Supreme Controller on the throne in the center of the kingdom.
- Nourishing the Metal will temper hyper-arousal in the Wood. Respect for people we don’t know or understand is the beginning of creating relationships across differences, and is a foundation for peace. Using the control cycle, we treat the Metal, with attention on the Wood. We cultivate respect for self and others, and mitigate hyper-arousal in the Wood, helping to restore vision, and move stagnation.
Our nation and our world need our healers, don’t you think?
Alaine’s Two Cents
The spiritual quality of the Wood Element, the Spring, is benevolence. I love this.
Think for a moment of the way trees take carbon dioxide and give us oxygen. They provide homes for birds and bugs. Benevolence is indeed kindness without any expectation of return.
Have you recently been surprised by either giving or receiving benevolence? Something spontaneous? Have you noticed how it tends to move into Fire energy – with a sense of connection, joy, pleasure? Try it out!
Today my glasses fell out of my pocket in a store, and a woman picked them up and handed them to me. I thanked her profusely – and then said: “This is the kind of America I want to live in.” Her whole body sighed as she responded, “You’ve got that right.” All of a sudden strangers became friendly, smiling, and engaged with each other. It was great! We both felt uplifted. Benevolence moved us both into our Fire — and cultivated our Ventral Vagus nerve. AND we moved that Fire into an experience of community and social transformation.
So good!
Check This Out!
This poem by Rabbi Irwin Keller speaks to me. You?
Taking Sides
Today I am taking sides.
I am taking the side of Peace.
Peace, which I will not abandon
even when its voice is drowned out
by hurt and hatred,
bitterness of loss,
cries of right and wrong.
I am taking the side of Peace
whose name has barely been spoken
in this winnerless war.
I will hold Peace in my arms,
and share my body’s breath,
lest Peace be added
to the body count.
I will call for de-escalation
even when I want nothing more
than to get even.
I will do it
in the service of Peace.
I will make a clearing
in the overgrown
thicket of cause and effect
so Peace can breathe
for a minute
and reach for the sky.
I will do what I must
to save the life of Peace.
I will breathe through tears.
I will swallow pride.
I will bite my tongue.
I will offer love
without testing for deservingness.
So don’t ask me to wave a flag today
unless it is the flag of Peace.
Don’t ask me to sing an anthem
unless it is a song of Peace.
Don’t ask me to take sides
unless it is the side of Peace.
https://www.irwinkeller.com/itzikswell/taking-sides
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 an acupuncturist. It seems like every single straight man who has ever come into my clinic has eventually crossed interpersonal boundaries and acted inappropriately. Comments about my attractiveness, jokes about how “if only” they were a few decades younger, invitations for me to move in with them, even grabbing me and pulling me closer so that they could look at my earrings.
I’m feeling distressed about these patterns and curious about my own role in generating these blurred lines and how to create a different outcome in the future. What would you suggest as I tease this all out?
A:
So glad you brought this issue up. So important. The first thing I want to say is this – their expressions of their sexuality belong to them – and not to you. They can have them, and you don’t need to engage with them – and ethically shouldn’t.
I remember a Veteran I was treating. All of a sudden he started saying “rub it, rub it, rub it.” I told him this is a safe place for him to explore his sexuality, and he didn’t have to worry – we would never act on it. He apologized when I saw him the next week. It turns out his benign prostate hypertrophy had manifested with an inability to have an erection for several years. I was working on his kidney yang – and his erection was actually an expression of healing – he wasn’t being a sexual predator at all! I’m so glad he didn’t have an experience of shame that was going to get over-coupled with the healing he had experienced.
I think it’s not surprising that sometimes our patients sexualize their experience of our care. It’s easy for feelings of sexual arousal to get over coupled with a longing to feel cared for, or feeling a sense of safe intimacy. How do we help men harvest those experiences, and separate them from sexual arousal?
The important thing is that they own it and you don’t get confused about it being about them and not you.
A potential response:
I’m hearing what you are saying as flirtatious. I want you to know that this is a safe place for you to explore your sexuality – and since this is a clinical relationship, and you don’t have to worry about us ever acting on your flirtations . . . this could be an important place for you to explore them a bit? What comes up for you when I say this?
Help them track their movement or stillness, emotions or meanings, sensations or images.
Could be very illuminating for them!
It sounds like you have curiosity about your distress in handling these situations. It may be helpful to talk with a peer or trusted mentor about their experiences or to explore these themes with a body-psychotherapist.