somatic healing Archives - Strona 2 z 2

Stres nie jest całkowicie zły!

sierpień 7, 2023

It’s what happens in our nervous system as a result of the stress response not completing that causes issues. Stress gets a bad rep, but in all actuality, without it we wouldn’t get far in life 🙈 The stress response is a product of evolution that gives us energy and helps us survive when we are in a life threatening situation. It helps you jump out of the way of a speeding car, to run away from a wild animal, and even to do things like yoga or exercise. Stressors (stressful situations) and body tension of all different kinds and sizes are part of every day life. Just the right amount of stress will give us the energy to mobilise and do all the things. However, if there is too much of this “survival energy” and the cycle doesn’t complete, it could lead to physical and mental burnout. Which is why it’s really important to understand what goes on inside the body and how to take care of yourself so that this stress and tension isn’t part of your everyday reality. Stress and stressors Stressors are all the things that bring us stress aka turn on the stress response in our soma (body-mind organism). Sometimes this happens because of a life threatening event, sometimes because of a series of events (like chronic abuse, neglect or systemic oppression), and other times the stressor may be your boss, partner, parent or your inner critical part – the nervous system doesn’t discriminate it just reacts to protect you, it can’t tell if the threat is real or “in your head” so to speak. Stress is what happens in your body. IT’s the neurophysiological process that happens in your body-mind organism when you feel you are in danger. Sometimes this gets called the fight- flight- freeze responses, but basically your heart starts to beat faster, your body gets flooded with different chemicals (like adrenaline), your muscles tighten, the blood goes into your limbs and your body shuts down the functioning of certain systems (like immunity and digestion) – all to get you ready to SURVIVE. It’s in the nervous system So not the stress that’s “bad” but the dysregulation of the nervous system that could happen if this cycle gets interrupted. Its important to understand that this stress response happens automatically in a split second. Evolutionarily this helped our ancestors survive when they encountered a wild animal. There’s no time to think about it, it doesn’t happen in our “wise mind” (the prefrontal cortex), it happens in the older parts of our brain that react instinctually. In modern times we may not have wild animals lurking behind the corner but our nervous system still treats all the threats we come across in life, both little ad big, as if it was a tiger stadning on our path. Then and now. Getting this cycle “unstuck” is nuance and highly personal, but one things for certain, getting that energy to move through the body, mobilization, will complete the cycle. Often times we may think that dealing with the stressor is the solution. “If my job is stressful, I’ll just find a new one” or “If my partner just stops doing this thing I hate, I won’t be so stressed”. Getting rid of the stressor may work temporarily, but it’s not the same as letting the stress cycle complete. all that energy still lives inside the body. Imagine how much energy it takes to run away from a tiger, that’s how much energy may be inside just wanting to be expressed! Just because we no longer see the threat it doesn’t mean that the body instantaneously just shut off the alarm system. The sympathetic part of the nervous system is still actively creating all the ENERGY you need to protect yourself. And once you mobilize and use up all that energy and you are in safety, a flexible nervous system will gradually go through the there parts of the cycle ( rest, digest and restoration) and your body will return back to baseline or homeostasis. Our ancestors mobilised and used this energy naturally because the threats were constant and real, in the sense that there were wild animals and things to run away from. Today the threats are often psychological which doesn’t make them any less real by the way, and not to mention when one stressor finishes another one usually starts- rushing to work, paying bills, ruptures in relationships- so the chances that we will encounter stressful situations again are certain – its part of our human experience. Completing the cycle. Not letting this survival energy get stuck in our body, instead mobilising it and getting it to pass through and express is an important step in completing the cycle and coming back to safety- homeostasis. It may seem obvious, but what would you do if you saw a tiger? You’d run! Imagine how much of that energy might be coursing through your body wanting to be expressed. Ever wondered why your jaw, shoulders and face are so tight even after doing all that yoga? Your body is still getting ready. So what should you do to get that energy moving? Well MOVE! It can be any movement really from running, exercising, dancing yoga, or cleaning your house, but the important thing to keep in mind here is that you are not using your mind =) but you drop into your body, FEEL and you do it with intention. When we’re running from a tiger we aren’t doing a beautiful choreography, so we aren’t thinking about it or performing. Getting this stuck energy moving involves connecting to your intuition, to sensing, feeling, being and getting weird with it. It means following your body’s innate impulses to jump, draw, paint, shake, stretch, walk, contract, expand, run, make noises, breathe, tremor, twist, twirl, dance to your favourite song or whatever! And good news, this doesn’t have to be an hour long strenuous workout, just move your body…
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10 sposobów na to jak możemy sprawić, że nasze zajęcia jogi będą bardziej świadome traumy

październik 11, 2022

Yoga practice isn’t only about the physical yoga shapes. The word yoga comes from “yuj” in Sanskrit meaning to unite – but to unite what exactly? We know that experiencing trauma can lead to a sense of alienation and disconnection from oneself, but “ Yoga is a journey of the self, through the self to the self” as it says in the Bhagavad Gita. Unfortunately not everything that we experience in a modern yoga class aids in this higher goal of our practice, and sometimes the good intentions of yoga instructors can cause more harm than good. Anywhere that yoga is practiced, someone will likely be struggling with trauma. Teaching yoga in a trauma-informed way requires us to make some changes, gain new skills, find compassion and patience. However, starting to view the world from a trauma sensitive lens can be one of the greatest gifts we can give not only to our students but to everyone around us. Why? Because trauma informs everything and most likely everyone who shows up to the mat has experienced some level of traumatisation. Why is it important? In the past couple of years trauma and trauma-informed care has become a new buzzword, but why and what does it all even mean? Maybe the pandemic had something to do with it, because clinical research in this area has been around since the the end of the 19th century (see more about the sexist history of “hysteria” here) but trauma informed care and wisdom are nothing new. It didn’t all start with some old white dudes in akademia, there is ancient indigenous knowledge of how to heal, become embodied and how to process trauma. Simply by becoming aware of how their bodies FELT, ancient humans created tools that made their bodies feel better (spiritual & religious tool like song, dance, prayer, yoga, meditation etc). Bessel Van der Kolk, one of the worlds leading experts in trauma, recognises this fact. Bessel’s book The Body Keeps the Score which was published in 2014 became ranked second in the science category of The New York Times Best Seller in 2019, and as of July 2021, the book had spent more than 141 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. This should tell you just how widespread this topic has become and if we practice Ahmisa and teach yoga to help in healing, rather than harming, then learning about how prevalent trauma is and it’s impact is a good place to start. We don’t have to question anyone, rather we should just assume that this is a fact and act accordingly. How prevalent is trauma? Often we may think of traumatic events as these “huge” life-threatening stressors like accidents, violence or natural disasters, and yes but not only, trauma is much more common than this and learning some of the statistics can be sobering. A survey done in 24 countries by WHO found that 70.4% people will have experienced lifetime traumas. The CDC statistics from the US report that one in four children experience some type of maltreatment (physical, emotional, sexual or neglect) during their life and one in four women have experienced domestic violence. A study called ACE’s (adverse childhood experiences) found that about 61% of adults surveyed reported they had experienced at least one type of ACE’s (adverse childhood experience) before age 18, and nearly 1 in 6 reported they had experienced four or more childhood traumatic experiences. Adverse childhood experiences can be experiencing things like abuse, violence or neglect and are linked to chronic health problems, mental illness, and destructive behaviours like substance use problems in adolescence and adulthood. Often these experiences (or lack of ones we should’ve received like stability, safety, love and acceptance) are pushed-away, bottled up or “forgotten” by the mind, but the body keeps the score like Van der Kolk said. How does trauma make us show up in life and can yoga help? Even if we don’t think about it or consciously remember the traumatic event, our body in order to protect us remembers all the sounds, smells, tone of voice and other sensory details associated with what happened and as a result different life circumstances can trigger big emotions to surface. These triggers and how we react to them are highly personal to each person but one was to describe it as being “hijacked” by ones body. THis can feel as if we are being “flooded” with intense emotions, thoughts and physical sensations or by “shutting down” or numbing (disassociating) to escape from feeling. It’s important to remember that neither of these “reactions” are a pathology, rather its our body’s way of adapting and coping, it’s protecting us and helping us to “survive”. When our body perceives threat our sympathetic nervous system gets us ready to fight or flee. But our body doesn’t discriminate, and throughout the day even when we’re hungry it thinks “OMG im going to die” but once you eat or whatever other perceived danger passes we come back into homeostasis, the parasympathetic NS of rest & digest. THis is a normal and necessary process and daily we rise to meet challenges and then calm down. A problem can start if we get “stuck on” or “stuck off” in one of these states and our NS still perceives danger, which literally rewires the brain. The good news is that our brains are plastic and can change during our whole lives so nothing is set in stone. Once we become aware that it’s not the external world but that something is happening inside of us then we can start to take care of ourselves, and one way to do that is through yoga. By yoga I don’t mean only asanas (physical yoga shapes) but also all of yoga philosophy and psychology. In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali wrote “Yoga chitta vritti nirodha”, which means “yoga is the stilling of fluctuations of the mind”- in this our mind, intellect and ego. This tells us what the true essence…
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Zależność czy samodzielność w jodze?

czerwiec 26, 2022

Do you have a self practice, or do you only go to yoga classes? Or maybe you like both? We are after all different and have the right to our own preferences but what I don’t agree with however, is teachers who make their students dependant on them (intentionally or unintentionally) and keep them from developing a self practice. There inherently is a power imbalance in the teacher/student relationship but how do we know when this power dynamic is unhealthy? There are things that should be present which can minimise this imbalance, like the teacher leading students towards self discovery, using invitational language and acting as a guide rather than being a know it all yoga “general”. I’m not a psychiatrist but I suspect one of my teachers of being like this and possessing some narcissistic traits.Looking back I see that this person was abusing their role of “authority” and even though the environment was toxic I kept coming back because I thought that this was just how it is n all yoga schools. All the students were ALWAYS doing something “wrong” that had to be “fixed”. Forget about self discovery, there was only one way of doing things, and if you couldn’t do it you’d be pushed and shoved into it so that it could be done “the right way” in “perfect alignment”. In effect this lead me to push myself really hard and hurt myself constantly, it exacerbated my perfectionism and deeply rooted feelings of inadequacy stemming from childhood trauma. But it was also a great lesson, sometimes we can learn more from a “bad” teacher than from a “good” one! Good intentions aren’t always enough and they can hurt people too. I think that its important to be aware how our actions effect others, especially when we are in a position of power. This is what it means to have a trauma informed approach to teaching yoga, its consciously trying NOT to harm our students and empowering them. It’s not about CONTROLLING people, rather helping them find their inner voice and strength so they can make their own decisions. Remember you are the BEST expert of your own body!

Trauma, Addiction & Yoga – The science behind healing your life

czerwiec 24, 2021

“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…
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