“Addiction is a complex psychophysiological process, but it has a few key components. I’d say that an addiction manifests in any behavior that a person finds temporary pleasure or relief in and therefore craves, suffers negative consequences from, and has trouble giving up.” Dr. GABOR MATÉ:

Usually when we think of addicts what comes to mind is a coke or heroin addict who’s throwing their whole life away just to satisfy their “dirty” little needs. There are two main views on addiction in the world today, one of the medical system of it being a brain disease therefor rendering us helpless victims and the other being the view of the legal system claiming that it is a CHOICE which is why they use punishment as a means of “rehabilitation”. But what if none of these are true? 

 If we go by this definition of addiction by Dr. Gabor Maté, ( a world renown retired physician & addiction/trauma specialist) I bet that anyone who took a couple minutes to honestly reflect upon their life would find that addiction doesn’t have to pertain to only substances and that they themselves may not be exempt from it either. If addiction is a choice it most certainly isn’t a conscious one and why is it that some addictions are OK and some are against the law?“Any behaviour that a person finds temporary pleasure or relief in” can be not only substances like illegal and or legal drugs (like alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, pain killers and other pharmaceuticals etc)  but also things like food, sex, internet, pornography, gambling, binge watching tv shows, exercise, extreme sports, work, shopping the list goes on and on. 

If you were to take a look at your life honestly, would you admit that at one point in your life or another you  have used any one or more of those things in an addictive way? Now stop and think of not WHY you did but what did these things do for you? Did they help you in numbing pain, numbing fear & anxiety, escaping from reality, relaxing, surviving, feeling pleasure, feeling loved, feeling accepted, feeling accomplished, feeling successful, feeling happy, satisfaction, releasing, fitting in, being understood,  connecting, feeing courageous, getting a buz or to in simply feeling ALIVE? Are these bad things to want or normal human needs? Addictions usually start out as a temporary solution to a problem, the consequences come after. Addiction is an attempt to change our internal state by way of external things, so let’s not ask why the addiction, but like Dr. Mate like to ask WHY THE PAIN  from which we are running away from? I know substances did all these things and more for me, but ever since I stopped using them I noticed addictive behaviours showing up in other areas of my life, which to me was a sign that it wasn’t the substances that were the issue but it was MUCH DEEPER than that.

Addiction you see, isn’t the problem, it’s actually more of a symptom. No one chooses to be a an addict just for fun. It starts as the brains coping mechanism in early childhood development, helping the child to survive, not feeling PAIN and SUFFERING.

“In the National Survey of Adolescents, teens who had experienced physical or sexual abuse/assault were three times more likely to report past or current substance abuse than those without a history of trauma.In surveys of adolescents receiving treatment for substance abuse, more than 70% of patients had a history of trauma exposure. This correlation is particularly strong for adolescents with PTSD. Studies indicate that up to 59% of young people with PTSD subsequently develop substance abuse problems.” The National Child Traumatic Stress Network  www.NCTSN.org)

When speaking about childhood trauma we must remember that it doesn’t necessarily have to be somethings as severe as sexual or physical abuse. Things like prenatal stress, absent parents, stressed parents (we can also add to the list intergenerational trauma as well but I’m trying to not make this short text a novel! ) and other problematic parental behaviours can cause a child to feel unwanted & unloved. To a young child it’s survival depends on it’s caregivers so this can be just as stressful to the developing brain and may cause permanent changes that will show up later in life. 

“The impact of stress on brain health begins in the womb. Both animal and human studies have found that prenatal maternal stress affects the brain and behavior of the offspring. Stressful life events, exposure to a natural disaster, and symptoms of maternal anxiety and depression increase the risk for the child having a range of emotional, behavioral and/or cognitive problems in later life. These include depression, anxiety, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and/or conduct disorders.“ – Prenatal stress: Effects on fetal and child brain development, AlexandraLautarescuabMichael C.CraigacVivetteGloverd

A young child in nature is egocentric, it doesn’t understand why mommy and daddy have to work long days and are coming home stressed, all it knows is that it FEELS responsible for the unhappiness of the parents. This feeling of guilt changes the neurophysiology of that child forever , that’s why the biggest gift you can give to your child is your own happiness, which the child will gladly mirror.

Don’t get me wrong here, im not trying to guilt shame all the parents out there. My parents did the best they could with what they had, they didn’t have a grand childhood either thats how this cycle of intergenerational trauma works. The good news is that once we are conscious of it we can change it. As a result, I ended up feeling like “the black sheep” and  “problem child”who didn’t  know how to control her emotions and that feeling of “not good enough” still haunts me today. 

I moved from Poland to New York City at the age of 5 which didn’t help me in the confidence department since I hardly knew how to speak English and was thrown right into fist grade. That in itself was pretty traumatising. I was an introvert and it was hard for me to make friends, especially since we moved around a lot when I was in elementary school. I was often the new girl and got bullied a lot. Then, when I was around 13 years old and on vacation visiting family in Poland I got really drunk for the first time and ended up getting raped. I blamed myself for it and  didn’t tell anyone. Instead I stuffed the pain and shame down, I didn’t realize then that body keeps the score and that it never forgets traumatic events, even if I live in denial acting like they never happened. .After that summer  I started my second year of Junior High School and started really rebelling and acting out. I became friends with some older kids, started listening to hard and dark music, dressing like a freak and experimenting with different substances. Back then I didn’t realize WHY I was behaving this way, I didn’t know that my neurophysiology was altered long ago and that my “acting out” was my bodies  defence mechanism protecting me from all the pain.

For the first time in my life I felt like I could be myself, and people were starting to notice me! In one school year I became one of the most popular girls in school! The drugs took away my pain, shyness, anxiety and helped me to finally feel like I belonged. 

Of course as time progressed so did my drugs of choice and I started changing with them. I was changing my “masks” and image so quickly you’d think I was putting on a play, all for the love of thrill seeking and acceptance. First I morphed into a grunge skater girl, then a gothic princess, later an extravagant club kid, a techno raver and finally I ended up doing graffiti and joining a street gang. My style of dress changed, my friends changed and so did my character and the substances I took to numb and escape. By the time I was 20 years old my morals had completely shifted, breaking the law and hurting people had become the new norm for me. Of course by then I had trauma piled on top of trauma, too many many toxic and abusive relationships to think of and as you know hurt people hurt people. I was numb and my heart was cold. I felt broken and hopeless. The only thing I cared about was getting high to get away from the horrific reality I living in, but little did I know that it wasn’t life happening TO me and hurting me but the pain and hurt was coming from deep down INSIDE my body and soul.

After almost dying from an overdose I left for a year long inpatient rehab in Poland where I finally came to the realisation WHY I was behaving the way I was. My addiction wasn’t a disease, it was a symptom. After getting out I stayed sober from substances but still I felt like there was a huge hole inside of me.Trauma is quite complex and effects everyone differently, I wasn’t aware of these the things I know  then but all I knew was that I was anxious all the time, scared to talk to people, sometimes too paralysed to leave my apartment, full of guilt and totally disassociated from my body. It was normal to sometimes feel these things while intoxicated but why was I feeling them while sober?

“Trauma is not what happens to you.Trauma is what happens inside you, as a result of what happens to you.”— Gabor Maté

Trauma is a wound and scar tissue that formed because of it,  and sice it’s a wound it can be healed. I always felt like an outsider who didn’t belong because I lost my connection to myself early on and didn’t know who I was because of it. So if trauma is a loss of self then to heal trauma  we have to learn how to reconnect with ourselves once again. The first step is seeing and acknowledging this because when we aren’t aware of why we act out the way we do its when we can turn into sociopaths. (just look at most the people high up in politics today!)

As it turns out PTSD has long lasting effects on our nervous system. A traumatic event can trigger our nervous system into a state of high arousal of the ANS (autonomic nervous system) leaving us in a reactive mode searching for potential threats( like a tiger or other predator) lurking somewhere around the corner. This FLIGHT/FIGHT/FREEZE response is actually our bodes survival mechanism but in the cause of past trauma our brain doesn’t realize the triggers are just paper tigers and memories of a past event, it thinks its happening in real time. Leaving us either feeling aroused with fear and anxiety OR in a state of numbed out dissociation and fatigue. 

This is an ongoing process for me, healing trauma is a lifelong project. I still feel some PTSD symptoms sometimes like anxiety and flashbacks, but it is nowhere near the level it was before. (You can read in more detail about PTSD symptoms  & self-care ideas here: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-and-complex-ptsd/symptoms/) Fortunately as time goes by and the more I understand myself (body & mind connection) the more I am able to heal from my past traumas. The further away I move from those events and the more consciously I choose to work on my inner world the more resilient I get.

The good news is that there are many techniques and ways in which we can learn to downregulate our autonomic nervous system and restore it back into balance. Yoga and Mindfulness are two of those things. 

Now a little bit of science to help us understand better how the nervous system works and how we can change our neurophysiology to start healing from trauma and live more mindfully in the present moment. Trauma effects the entire human organism- body, mind brain (not that those are separate =P). When triggered emotionally the body reacts viscerally as if a magic button was pushed and we end up feeling the same exact way we did as when the original even took place. The fight, flight or freeze response is our bodies natural emergency system but the problem starts when one of the parts of our CNS (Central Nervous System – the brain and spine) start being over active and another under active like in the case of toxic stress or PTSD. We can get triggered and fixed on past events, which puts the ANS (autonomic nervous system- ) into action and ready to fight, flee, or if we can’t do either of those we shut down and freeze.

Clinical research done by Dr. Van der Kolk and his team have shown that in the case of trauma, even long after the traumatic event has passed, a trigger can leave us reliving and feeling the same way we did that day. The body goes into in a high arousal state and  gets stuck in fight/flight mode where the Sympathetic part of the ANS is overactive and constantly looking for a threat. We can become reactive, aggressive, heart and blood pressure rise – it’s like having a constant case of road rage. And If we can’t run away  from the threat (real or imagined) we freeze and depersonalisation can take place leading to a total shutdown and disassociation from oneself.

In 1994 Steven Porges introduced the Polyvagal Theory, which provided us with a more sophisticated understanding of the CNS through the vagus nerve ( which connects all our major organs). The theory helped to explain the biology of safety and danger and how the emotions, voices and faces of people around us effect how visceral experiences in our own bodies.

 How a soothing voice can have the power to calm and soothe us while  being ignored or dismissed can evoke rage or even mental collapse. Porges theory also explains how the ANS regulates our inner world depending on the level of safety we feel. When we feel threatened we (and all mammals) first instinctively turn to SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT, calling for help or support from people around us. 

The nerves coming form the brain stem responsible for this action are called the ventral vagus complex (VVC) When it’s running the show we smile, nod when we agree or frown at a friend’s misfortune. The VVC also sends signals to the heart and lungs that all is well so they slow down and our breathing gets deeper. This result in a feeling of being calm, relaxed, centred or pleasurable aroused. When something distressing happens and we don’t receive assistance after calling for help the sympathetic part of the ANS takes over mobilising muscles, heart and lungs for fight or flight. If however we are in a situation where we are trapped ( like in a burning house, pinned down by an abuser or stuck in a car after a crash) our body’s ultimate emergency system takes over: the dorsal vagal complex (DVC). Our metabolism drastically reduces, heart rate drops (the feeling of our heart “dropping”), we can’t breathe, gut stops working or even empties (scaring the shit out of us). This immobilization is at the root of most traumas so in order to start healing we first need to restore a the sense of physical safety.

Our bodies keep will keep the memory of this traumatic event stored away but in the moment in order for us to not go crazy from the massive terror and pain (be it physical or emotional) often depersonalisation can occur, in other words we disconnect from ourselves and our bodies. Losing a sense of self is perhaps the greatest loss caused by trauma, when we don’t know who we are we let others tell us and create our narrative. We act irrationally and impulsively controlled by our emotions like branches swaying in the wind, and unknowingly re-enacting the past over and over in the present. But if trauma is a loss of self that means that in order to heal we must find ourselves again and reconnect to our bodies.

 From what we know beyond specific symptoms, most of all mental suffering is a difficulty in regulating arousal ( habitual rage, overexcitement, shutdown/freeze response, disorganisation). Standard medicine usually focuses on finding a pill to cure our symptoms, but it rarely deals with the root cause  and how our issues interfere with our functioning as members of our human tribe. So if we want to start the process of trauma healing  (or other diseases that are caused by disregulation of the autonomic nervous system) we must learn how to recognise and regulate our levels of arousal. 

Some things that can help us in this is feeling safe, having supporting people around us, having a sense of belonging and community, playing, dancing, mindfulness, mindful movement, mindful breathing ( preferable nasal breathing with focus on lengthening exhales if possible) singing chanting and YOGA. The funny thing is that this ancient wisdom has been known and passed down by indigenous people for thousands of years so it’s nothing new, our job now is to start to remember and integrate it back into our lives.

“ In short, Porges theory made us look beyond the effects of fight or flight and put social relationships front and center in our understanding of trauma. It also suggested new approaches to healing that focus on strengthening the body system for regulating arousal.” Bessel Van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score

 In the case of PTSD and toxic stress, the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (also called the “watchtower”) located in our thinking brain (the frontal cortex) starts to get underactive making it hard to to be self aware and conscious of wether the threat is real and how we should respond. The reptilian instinctive part of our brain  (the brainstem) is our first line of defence when it comes to threats, the only problem is that when the Frontal Cortex is under active, we start to loose perspective wether the threat is really real (like a tiger trying to eat us) or if the threat is “just a thought” about a tiger. The Amygdala located in the emotional brain (limbic system) is often called the “smoke detector” and is responsible for alerting us to danger and the need to fight/flight or freeze based on  emotional and  sensory information. When the Amygdala becomes OVERACTIVE it causes the body mind to be in constant hyperarousal or hypoarousal.

This brings us back to how we can calm our body mind with mindful movement & breath. My yoga practice has not only helped me to learn how to self-soothe but also to be more present and in touch with my own body, the body that I had been disassociated from for so long because of trauma with a capital “T”.

Using slow, intentional and mindful movement will help us get out of our heads and come back into our body by down regulating the ANS from its over-reactive state into a calmer and more socially engaged state, which is an important first step for the traumatised population. Research tells us that deepening, lengthening, widening and slowing our breath can help down regulate the ANS and calm the body mind. Focusing on the breath also helps to remain in the present moment, showing us what we are feeling and experiencing NOW. It’s only when we can see what’s arising in us NOW can we take care of ourselves. The other important aspect of mindfulness that we should remember is ACCEPTANCE of whatever arises because if we see what’s here now but we don’t accept it, we can start to torture ourselves with guilt or push down and suppress emotions then mindfulness becomes more like a punishment. Think of it as a of compassionate self-questioning helping us to realize that WE HAVE THE POWER to change the experience which we are having.

“Mindfulness, awareness of one’s inner experiences is necessary for a person to respond according to what is happening and is needed in the present rather than reacting to certain somatic sensations as a return to the traumatic past. Such awareness will free people to introduce new options to solve problems and not to merely react reflexively.” Van der Kook

The practice of Mindfulness and Mindful Trauma Informed Yoga can really help us to bring the watchtower (the thinking brain) back online so that we can find this state of calm alertness, a conscious awareness instead of just being on autopilot and reacting to everything life throws our way. It also helps us to recognise that we aren’t the thoughts, sensations or emotions in our body, we are MORE THAN THAT!. Sure they arise in us but once  we start to observe them we start to realize that they can pass just as quickly as they arise and that nothing lasts forever. 

“The recent, but no longer new, discipline of psychoneuroimmunology has delineated the many neurological and biochemical mechanisms that unite all these seemingly disparate systems into one super-system…. In effect, when we repress emotions—just as when we are completely at their mercy, such as in moments of untrammeled rage—we are playing havoc with our nervous system, hormonal apparatus, immune system, intestines, heart, and other organs. The result can be chronic or acute illness. As repressed anger eventually turns against us, the immune system can as well, as in autoimmune disorders, for example.” Dr Gabor Mate

The hardest thing for me in all of this is learning how to give myself the freedom to really let myself FEEL and to FULLY ACCEPT, regardless of what it may be, with kindness and compassion instead of shoving it down and repressing it. Now I know that not only is ok to express our emotions but it is HEALTHY. The body and mind aren’t two separate things they are connected in the same body, what happens to one affects the other because it’s all psychosomatic. 

When it comes to the type of practice you choose I think it will be quite subjective and individual  as everyone is different, has different experiences and gets triggered by different things. There are special Mindful Trauma Informed Yoga  classes you can take that are specifically designed to cater to students living with trauma (I just uploaded a class like this on my YT channelHERE), with that being said I also believe that ALL yoga classes should be trauma informed, but that’s a topic for a whole other blog! You see many people come to Yoga because they are looking for healing but maybe aren’t sure yet what’s going on inside of them. 

So if we are Yoga teachers ourselves we should really to to be more aware of the high probability that students with a history of trauma will be present in our classes and with that comes a big responsibility to NOT retraumatize them. 

Some of us on the other hand may enjoy a less trauma-specific type of practice like Vinyasa type class or Ashtanga Yoga. There probably won’t be trauma informed cuing but this type of dynamic continuous flow, focusing on our breath and movement can also help put our body mind back into balance, just as long as it’s sill mindful and not more of a fast paced “yoga-workout” which is more likely put us into a state of high arousal (SNS activation). Then there are slower practices like Yin Yoga and restorative Yoga which can also prove to be soothing and beneficial to some, keeping in mind that staying still for a long periods of time can sometimes be triggering to some and can bring up emotions from the past or put us back in a state of hypoarousal (immobilisation). 

Since we are ALL different and react to stressors differently, wether we have a history of trauma or not, I think it is extremely crucial for us as individuals to learn to be in tune with ourselves and to our inner world. This is what Yoga practices all about, it’s not about the deepest backbend or the most perfectly executed sequence. It’s about recognising, reacting and accepting our inner experience and realizing that we have all the answers inside of us. We should NEVER let other people (Yoga teachers  included )tell us what we SHOULD be feeling. 

“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgementally” Jon Kabat Zim

If you want, next time you get on your mat try to be a bit more explorative, curious and practice compassionate inquiry, asking yourself:

Is the way I practice making me feel more at ease of more anxious? 

How does the place I practice at make me feel, accepted or judged?

How do the cues of the teacher make me feel?

Do I tense up when I get a physical adjustment or does it help me relax?

What am I feeling right now?

How is my breathing feeling right now, is it slow and deep or fast and shallow?

Which muscles are tightening?

Am I pushing too hard?

Am I zoning out and feeling immobilised?

Am I getting dissociated from my body?

Am I feeling hyper aroused, rushing and not able to concentrate?

AM I judging myself?

Am I comparing myself to others?

Am I forcing myself into poses?

Am I pushing past pain?

Whichever type of Yoga practice you may choose on your healing journey, try to be mindful of the way you practice and the way you FEEL. Try to not rush, instead be present, keeping the breath steady and calm and the mind in a state of calm alertness. When a tough pose comes up, recognise & regulate what arises listening to your body innate intelligence. Like for example practicing handstands or a deep twists will in time teach us how to manage high levels of stress not only on but also off the mat in “the real world” making us more resilient to what life throws our way. We know that when we calm and lengthen our breath, the body mind follows, regardless wether we’re in a tough asana or stuck in a traffic jam. But it’ can be a double edge sword, just like we try not to punish ourselves with unpleasant emotions without compassionate acceptance the same goes for not punishing ourselves with Yoga asana. 

There is a fine line between staying calm in a tough pose and gritting our teeth breathing through pain in a pose that isn’t serving our body, that is how injuries happen. I know from experience as I practiced this way in the past, hurting myself time and again. A sense of competition would arise in the Yoga studio around other students and I would push myself way too far without listening to the signals my body was sending. I also felt like my teacher at the time was pushing me towards more and more advanced variations of poses, which my ego loved but my body on the other hand was saying NO, addiction can come up in the way we practice also. Like we discussed in the beginning, It can come up  in ANY behavior that we find temporary pleasure or relief in and therefore crave, later suffering negative consequences from and have trouble giving up.

So we can choose to beat ourselves up about all the things we did wrong or try to let them go. I try to choose the latter as everything we go through in life’s  a learning process, besides the healing journey is one that will probably last our whole lives, so as long as we learn to recognise what arises when it arises and try to accept ourselves just the way we are, we are on the right path. 

“In the Samyutta Nikaya text, the Buddha says : You can search the whole universe and you won’t find but one being, who deserves loving compassion more than ourselves. Sometimes we have to free ourselves from our own Self. Other times the problem reflects in our low self-esteem or hatred towards ourselves. Healing and liberation of the heart can only be attained by loving the very Self that we rejected.” Jack Kornfield, Path of the Heart

References:

When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress – Dr.Gabor Mate (book)

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma- Bessel Van Der Kolk

https://www.yogitimes.com/article/how-yoga-helps-heal-in-trauma-recovery

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539845/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3051362/

https://www.nctsn.org/resources/understanding-links-between-adolescent-trauma-and-substance-abuse-toolkit-providers-2nd

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5050399/

Gabor Maté: How to Build a Culture of Good Health

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3188414/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00707788

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0074774219301199

https://thewisdomoftrauma.com/portfolio-item/about-the-film/