Healing the Heart

25Oct09

For the past two months, my therapist and I have been using a very non-traditional method for healing from complex post-traumatic stress with great success. She is both a licensed art therapist as well as a level II reiki practitioner, and we decided to combine the art therapy with reiki sessions in an attempt to remove blockages to healing, release old pain, balance the energy flow, and to stabilize and regulate emotional responses.

If this sounds hokey or “new-agey” or completely ridiculous, let me just add that I spent 20 years in the mainstream mental health system trying all sorts of traditional therapies, being prescribed heavy-duty drugs that severely damaged my health and ability to function while impeding any sort of progress toward healing whatsoever. Even when I finally managed to get away from mainstream mental health treatment and began art therapy with my current therapist who specializes in working with childhood trauma issues, the emotional reactivity involved in the trauma processing was still too great, and focusing on the past traumas was not allowing resolution. It was keeping the past very much alive in the present and keeping me in it almost constantly.

We needed to find another way to work.

This is where we decided that we should talk less and focus more on working with the body, using the artwork as the main form of expression. What happened as we began this treatment protocol was amazing and like nothing I could have imagined. It very quickly began to alter my whole life.

We began with chakra balancing and went on to work with chakra healing, and one of my main concerns was being able to let go of the anger and fear that were overwhelming me so often. The effects of this work were almost immediately noticeable. One of the first major changes I felt was in relation to anger and the usual triggers. It was shocking to me to find that things were coming up that would usually throw me off, sending me into an emotional spiral and making it difficult to re-stabilize, were not having that effect on me. It’s as if there was nothing for the triggers to set afire, nothing for them to throw into motion. I had my doubts that it could be working immediately and with such efficacy, and I am still waiting for some huge explosion to happen, but I cannot deny how much of an improvement this treatment is making in all aspects of myself and life.

We started working in this manner during the same week that I began the Fall semester, and I am currently learning metals fabrication in a studio class. Working with tangible, 3-D objects as opposed to the usual 2-D imagery has also been beneficial. My 2-D imagery tends to be dark, or has been up until now, and one of the best things about working in this entirely new medium (to me) is that it has also freed me from old work patterns as well. My art interests and efforts are transforming along with my healing process, and the current therapy is working it’s way into my art-making.

Early into the semester, a close friendship was ended very abruptly…not by my choice. I’d felt it coming for some time, and I wasn’t surprised. I was sad, and I waited for the world to cave in, but what happened surprised me. I didn’t get sucked into the vortex. I cried. Then I went to school. I did my work. I opened myself up to accepting new people into my life, and I found that no anger or deep grief came to stay. I very quickly moved on. It’s as if this was what I needed but never would have done by my own accord, and I can only hope that it has been as positive a change for my friend as it has been for me. I’ll always love her, but it was time to let go of each other. This experience too has made its way into my new work.

My friend had sent me some stones a few months back, and I didn’t know how I might use them until a project came up in the metals class. This friend has spoken of feeling that there was a stone stuck in her chest in the area of the heart chakra, and as a survivor of abuse it would make sense that she might develop a block in that area. I don’t know if she knew about the healing properties of one of the cabochons she sent me, but this ended up being incorporated into my most recent project, and it was made with healing wishes in mind.

I set the pink rhodonite cabochon she’d given me in a copper bezel that I fabricated from wire and sheet metal and suspended it from a piece of copper that I roll-printed with the heart-chakra symbol. Using copper wire and some other semi-precious stones, fancy jasper and green aventurine, I made a necklace meant to be worn as a symbol of healing. The thing is, I didn’t know about the spiritual healing properties related to copper or most of these stones while I was making this piece. It was made out of what was handed to me and what I already had, and there were “mistakes” made that helped to make this piece even more beautiful. It’s as if it was waiting for me to help it manifest itself. Even the pink fire scale left by the torch used to anneal the copper for rolling lent beauty to this piece. The result took my breath away, and I hope to continue working in this manner and designing and constructing new pieces related to the work we’re doing in therapy at this time.

This is my heart chakra necklace below.

Here’s some information related to the materials used and their healing properties:

Spiritual Concepts of Copper

Copper is known as a good conductor of energy, as well as a balancing metal that works with the flow of projective and receptive energies. Copper is known to Shamans and Healers to be a metal that balances the body’s polarities, thereby removing blockages which are responsible for illness or imbalance. Copper is healing for the mind, body and spirit. It provides a harmonic connection between the physical and astral bodies and also can align the subtle bodies. It has been used to amplify and transmit thought and healing energy. Copper has been used with stones and crystals it helps to align the stone’s individual energy field (since every stone has its own properties). It has also been used to create a unique balance of energy, by combining stone and copper, which remains solely unique to the individual using it. It can assist in combating fatigue and lethargy, restlessness and non-acceptance of one’s self.

Rhodonite Associations

Chakras – Heart Chakra
Zodiac – Taurus
Planet – Venus
Element – Earth
Typical colours - red, pink, brownish-red, grey

Rhodonite is a stone of compassion, an emotional balancer that clears away emotional wounds and scars from the past, and that nurtures love.  It stimulates, clears and activates the heart.  Rhodonite grounds energy, balances yin-yang, and aids in achieving one’s highest potential.  It heals emotional shock and panic.  Rhodonite aids in cases of emotional self-destruction, codependency and abuse.  It encourages unselfish self-love and forgiveness.  Promotes remaining calm in dangerous or upsetting situations.  Builds confidence and alleviates confusion.

Rhodonite can be especially helpful for people who are consciously working to become heart-centered. For such people, a clear physical-emotional connection is particularly important. Unfortunately, many people who are striving to become more heart-centered incorrectly interpret heart-centered to mean emotionally centered. They wrongly believe that their emotions are the source of truth, and they base decisions primarily on how they feel. Wiser decisions can be made by giving equal weight to input from the body, emotions, mind, and intuition. Rhodonite helps people master the shift to a more balanced, heart-oriented view by helping them put their emotions in proper perspective.

Green Aventurine

Chakras – Heart Chakra

Typical colours – Green

Aventurine is a stone of prosperity.  It reinforces leadership qualities and decisiveness.  Promotes compassion and empathy.  Encourages perseverance.  Aventurine relieves stammers and severe neuroses.  It stabilises one’s state of mind, stimulates perception and enhances creativity.  Aids in seeing alternatives and possibilities.  Calms anger and irritation.  Promotes feelings of well-being.  Aventurine balances male-female energy.  It encourages regeneration of the heart. Green Aventurine is a comforter and heart healer.  It neutralizes all sources of electromagnetic pollution, blocking out emanations from computers, television and other electronic equipment.  Green Aventurine settles nausea and dissolves negative emotions and thoughts.  It brings well-being and emotional calm.

Fancy Jasper

Fancy jasper varies in color from forest green to burgundy and gold. It is useful for general healing. Jasper is considered a gemstone that gives a sense of well-being. Fancy jasper intensifies and lightens that feeling. It is especially helpful for people whose male energies are extreme. It helps people lighten up and enjoy themselves. Fancy Jasper heals and releases disease and obsession. It stimulates the heart charka.

It is said to provide protection, and to have a calming effect, giving stability and security.  Jasper is also said to balance one’s physical, emotional and intellectual states. Jasper in general is a wonderful supporting stone. Wear it to gain a positive outlook. Attracts what one needs (not wants). Good for those needing more organizational abilities. Mood elevator, invigorating, stabilizing and helps overcome depression and stress. Jasper is a stone of gentleness and relaxation. It enhances one’s ability to relax and brings tranquility, comforting, wholeness, healing, and gentle endings. It is sometimes called the nurturing stone for its nurturing and protective energies. Jasper reminds people to help each other.

This whole project feels like a culmination of all the recent changes in my life, and it’s literally restructuring every aspect of my being. There’s deep healing going on at levels I never could have attempted on my own, and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities that I have to work in this manner.

Healing is possible, and what we need to heal is within us all waiting to be tapped.

Filed under: abuse, acceptance, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, balance, benefits of art, chakra balancing, chakra healing, change, child abuse, compassion, coping, creativity, depression, distress tolerance, energy healing, fear, forgiveness, grief, grounding, happiness, healing, healing childhood wounds, healing properties, health care, hope, inspiration, jewelry-making, joy, letting go, life lessons, loss, love, managing emotional distress, memory, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, processing emotional memory, recovery, reiki, relationships, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, semi-precious stones, sexual abuse, stress, survival, symbolism, therapy, trauma, trauma therapy   |  Leave a Comment

The Drama Triangle

24Oct09

The concept of the “Drama Triangle” was first described in an article published by Stephen Karpman in 1968. In the late 70’s, Dr. Arthur Melville and Marsha Utain began working together in an effort to refine this concept so that it could be used as a tool for understanding how dysfunctional families operate. With their expansion on the basic Triangle, Melville and Utain were able to cultivate a lucid model of human dysfunction as it pertains to interpersonal relationships. Their model describes the intricacies of the psychological games as well as the emotional processes that cause individuals to stay trapped in the Drama Triangle. This model applies not only to dysfunctional families, but extends outward into the non-familial relationships of those who have been reared in an environment where such dynamics are the status quo.

There are certain processes that are characteristic of dysfunctional families and dysfunctional relationships in general. The Triangle attempts to describe these processes by defining the specific “roles” and “rules” for interaction as they tend to unfold in dysfunctional relationships.

For those of us who have grown up in families where there was abuse, neglect, alcohol/drug addiction, mental illness or any other circumstances that can create the kind of fear that may distort or prevent our ability to be in touch with who we are and how we feel as individuals, it is likely we will have developed with a lack of understanding into what motivates our behavior within our relationships. This is because the authentic-self is undeveloped or has been cast away in order to play a certain role in the family that is for the family’s benefit. Self-hood is lost and replaced by a shell of a person that is manipulated and who manipulates in turn, engaging in a dance that allows a false sense of order, purpose and identity among the dancers. In reality, the end result is nothing short of chaos, and without a clear understanding of how the Drama Triangle works, attempting to escape the snare may be an almost futile effort.

I was first introduced to the concept of the Drama Triangle a few years back in a book entitled, Scream Louder:Through Hell and Healing With an Incest Survivor and Her Therapist , written by therapist Marsha Utain and her patient Barbara Oliver.

Utain is able to designate the three participating roles that make up each side of the Triangle and to effectively describe the complex process by which these roles interact.The roles represented in the Triangle are that of the Victim, the Rescuer and the Persecutor.

In Scream Louder Marsha Utain (1989) writes,“The Triangle is based on blame and guilt and is put into operation whenever any type of lie or denial occurs. Without blame, guilt or lies, there would be no Drama Triangle and no chaos.Instead there would be healthy responsible relationships based on honest and clear communications” (pp.166-167). Below is a figure taken from page 167 which depicts the structure of the Drama Triangle:

“Before exploring the Triangle in depth, it is important to remember that participating in any role in the Triangle does not mean that you are a bad person. It means that you are caught in the dysfunctional programming that you grew up with in your families” (Marsha Utain, 1989, p. 167).

In observing how the Drama Triangle is configured, you will notice that the Victim is in the pivotal position.

Victim
In the drama triangle, the Victim position is the central, or key role around which the other positions revolve. Those operating from within the Victim position avoid taking responsibility for their actions and/or feelings.These individuals are consistent in their approach to looking for someone or something to blame for their problems in life.

Two basic types of Victims have been identified:the Pathetic Victim and the Angry Victim. The Pathetic Victim employs the language of self-pity, crying “poor me” with facial and other non-verbal expressions that epitomize the look of desolation, while the Angry Victim makes use of “You’re bad” types of language.The Angry Victim fronts with a powerful sounding,“I won’t let you do that to me!” or “You won’t do that to me again!” stance. Both of these Victim role variations allow the Victim to attribute all of their problems and conflicts to an external locus, relieving them of responsibility for their actions and/or emotions. Pathetic and Angry Victims alike are on the search for someone that they can blame for their emotions as well as for everything that does not work out in their lives. Additionally, the Victims are looking for a Rescuer, someone that can be “hooked” into caring for and maintaining the Victim’s responsibilities.

By employing blame and guilt, Victims are able to manipulate others into doing what they want them to do, or behaving in ways that support their own endeavors. A Victim will always find someone to blame for their lives not working- a Persecutor. If one accepts that blame, he/she will feel guilty and may try to correct the situation. As soon as this individual (Persecutor) attempts to repair things for the Victim, his/her role shifts from that of Persecutor to Rescuer, and the Rescuer has effectively been hooked into the Drama Triangle.

It must be made clear that Victims’ use of open and/or implied blame to manipulate others into rescuing them, is an unconscious defense mechanism, a survival mechanism that becomes part of the personality very early in life. Those who engage in the Triangle have often times grown up in families where their emotional experiences and needs are invalidated on a consistent basis. Often, the only way to get their needs acknowledged and met within the family system is through this kind of blame and guilt-inducing manipulation. Unfortunately, this way of relating becomes the only way of relating, and these destructive interpersonal dynamics carry over into all relationships, both within and outside of the family.

Rescuer
“As any recovering co-alcoholic knows, the role of the Rescuer is a highly addictive role, because it is the position of the “Good Guy”. Because of the way most people are raised, whenever they feel guilty, believing that they have been “bad” and have done something wrong, they will try to get out of the guilt by moving into the Rescuer “Good Guy” position. People do not like to be labeled “Bad Guys” so they actively seek the position of Rescuer- “Good Guy” and because it affords them some relief from the guilt, they get addicted to it” (Marsha Utain, 1989, pp. 169-170).

We are raised to believe that we must be “good”, which often entails caring for others to the extent that our own needs are excluded, often neglected at the cost of our own well-being. We get relentlessly hammered with the idea that self-caring is “selfish” and that selfishness is wrong and “bad”. These ideas create in us a weak point that serves to make us prime targets for the Victim’s manipulative “hook” of guilt because we come into the relationship already believing that it is our role, or that we “should” take care of other people’s problems- especially if we care about them, and that if we do not- we are “bad” or worthless. “Because we do not wish to get cast in the “Bad Guy Persecutor” role, we jump in to rescue the Victim, even when it is not in our best interest and not integral with the truth about who we are and what we want. This position of Rescuer in the Triangle fits the traditional role in the Alcoholic Family Syndrome of the enabler, the co-dependent. This is the person in the family who enables the alcoholic to continue the disease process by not insisting that the alcoholic be responsible for his actions” (Marsha Utain, 1989, p.170). This same co-dependency dynamic that operates within the alcoholic family is easily generalized to other “diseased” family systems and dysfunctional non-familial interpersonal relationships as well.

Taking on the role of Rescuer allows one a reprieve from guilt as well as the opportunity to feel that he/she is acting in an unselfish manner entirely for the benefit of someone else. This idea that one is acting for someone else’s good is what creates the fleeting “high” that makes the Rescuer position so addictive. The Rescuer, however, is completely unaware that he/she is motivated by selfish reasons: the avoidance of feeling or appearing to be a bad person.

“There is another important point to understand about Rescuers in the Drama Triangle. Because of the very nature of the Triangle, Rescuers must have a Victim, someone to take care of, someone to control, someone, who by their very need, makes the Rescuer feel good” (Marsha Utain, 1989, p.170). When people are co-dependent, addicted to the Rescuer role, they have a strong need to rescue. The Rescuer uses the Victim in order to fill that need. There must be a Victim around for the Rescuer to “help” or “protect”. When a Victim is not readily available, the Rescuer will seek out or attempt to create one.

“In general, Rescuers need to be needed, and they need to be in control and be right, no matter what the cost. Being in control and being right allows the Rescuer to avoid dealing with any emotions or discomfort. In all addictions the addictive substance or behavior, in this case Rescuing, is used by the addict to avoid feelings (Marsha Utain, 1989, p.171). The Rescuers’ determination to avoid their own feelings and to avoid paying attention to anyone else’s feelings, is so powerful that they are unaware of the underlying message that is being communicated to their chosen “Victim”: “You are weak, but I am strong”, “You cannot take care of yourself”, “You need my protection”, “You are not strong enough (or good enough), therefore, I should be in charge.” Sadly, “Rescuers are usually so involved with the “high” of feeling good because they have helped someone, that they fail to notice how awful the person being rescued is made to feel in the process”(Marsha Utain, 1989, p.171).

“Still another important aspect of the Triangle that is pertinent to the Rescuer role is the one-for-one rule that says that every time someone rescues another person, the Rescuer will end up the final Victim in that play”(Marsha Utain, 1989, p.171). And this is how that happens: When we decide to rescue a Victim, we fail to act in our own best interest, ultimately harming the Victim as well as ourselves. Our care-taking of others is an attempt to avoid guilt- past or present and to feel good about ourselves. In addition, we may identify with the Victim and his/her struggles, unconsciously attempting to heal ourselves by “fixing” things for the Victim under the guise of selfless caring or support for another. This can cause us to avoid the healthy, assertive action of caring for ourselves, jeopardizing our own well-being and causing us to end up in the Victim role at the end, having victimized ourselves- yet, laying blame on the Victim, effectively attempting to move the Victim into the Persecutor role.

Persecutor
“The role of the Persecutor is the role of the “Bad Guy”, the villain. It is the one role that few people consciously choose as their starting place in the Triangle. In fact, it is the role that keeps the Triangle going, because people in that Triangle are attempting to avoid that position by moving into the Rescuer role or by perceiving themselves as Victims” (Marsha Utain, 1989, p.172). It is difficult to see oneself or to be perceived by others as the “Bad Guy”. Victims use the Persecutor role, while utilizing blame, to manipulate or “maneuver” others into rescuing them. And here’s the clincher: “What makes this position truly unique is the fact that once you are in the Triangle and you decide to leave it, you must leave from this (Persecutor) position. In other words, when you remove yourself from playing the Triangle, anyone still playing will perceive you as the Persecutor”(Marsha Utain, 1989, p.172).

In order to step out of the chaos in our lives, to get out of the Triangle and stay out of the Triangle, we must tell the truth about what we are feeling and refuse to accept the guilt that others in the Triangle will try to place on us. The most difficult part for many may be in finding the willingness to feel and to sit with the fear, anxiety, anger and sadness that comes when being accused of being the Persecutor by those who are still working within the Triangle.

“Positioning, Maneuvering and Rules In The Triangle”
Excerpted from (Marsha Utain, 1989, pp.173-175), these are the key points to remember:

1. The Triangle is based on lies. Tell a lie to yourself or someone else, whether it is a lie about data or a lie about your emotions or your experience, and you move immediately into the Triangle and the addictive process.
2. All shoulds are a lie. Therefore, shoulds will throw you into the Triangle.
3. All positions in the Triangle cause pain- so no matter what position you are in at any given moment in the Triangle, you will be in pain.
4. There is no power in the Triangle. When you are in the Triangle, you are operating from powerlessness and irresponsibility no matter what position you are playing.
5. Everyone has a favorite starting position which is usually either the Rescuer or the Victim. Few people choose Persecutor as starting position.
6. Once you are hooked into the Triangle, you will end up playing all the positions, whether you like it or not, because of the nature of the Triangle.
7. Guilt is the experience that hooks you into the Triangle.
8. The “escape hatch” out of the Triangle is located at the Persecutor position. Telling the truth and feeling your emotions opens the escape hatch out of the Triangle. In other words, in order to leave the Triangle or for that matter to stay out of it, you have to be willing for others to perceive you as the “Bad Guy” and then go through whatever emotions surface as a result of their perception. If other people in the Triangle are willing to tell the truth and experience their feelings, the Triangle disappears. If they are not, as is more often the case, then you leave looking like their Persecutor.
9. You can play the Triangle alone with yourself. (Once you have been raised in a dysfunctional family, you do not need anyone else to push you into the Triangle.) The way you play the Triangle by yourself is by listening to the negative voice inside your head that beats you up,”puts you down” and constantly shoulds you.
10. When you actively participate in a relationship with someone who lives in the Triangle, you must be very careful of the hooks. It is difficult to be around people who constantly operate in the Triangle and not get hooked in yourself, especially if your personal boundaries are not clear and you have not learned to recognize the Triangle.
11. Your internalized should-er is also the voice that pushes you into the Triangle when others around you are in and attempting to hook you. The should-er is the false-self, the part that is actually someone else who you believe is you. It is controlling, negative, rigid, perfectionistic and righteous. Without that part of you operating, you would not participate in the Triangle.
12. Being in the Triangle is not being alive; It is a living death. It is a life of pain, inauthenticity and lack of love and acceptance.
13. Suicide is the ultimate Victim act, the act of self-pity.
    
14. Telling the truth and experiencing your emotions is the only way out of the Triangle. To do that you have to learn how to know and define your boundaries and take responsibility for recognizing, experiencing, expressing and completing your emotions.

Bibliography
Utain, M. & Oliver, B. (1989) Scream Louder:Through Hell and Healing With an Incest Survivor and Her Therapist. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications, Inc.

Filed under: abuse, acceptance, alcohol and substance abuse, anger, anxiety, boundaries, change, child abuse, codependency, communication, coping, depression, dissociation, distress tolerance, domestic violence, eating disorders, emotional blackmail, exploitation, family, family dynamics, family issues, fear, flashbacks, grief, healing childhood wounds, letting go, life lessons, loss, love, lying, managing emotional distress, manipulation, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, rape, recovery, relationships, resources, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, sexual abuse, shame, stress, suicide, survival, therapy, trauma, trauma therapy, violence, voicelessness   |  Leave a Comment

The healing nature of mandalas

22Sep09

Many of us who have survived prolonged and repeated traumas go on to develop an identity or identities that are tainted with a deep sense of brokenness. The feelings of loss and grief over who we might have been and what we might have done (if we’d been reared in a safe, supportive, nurturing environment) can be absolutely overwhelming, pervading our lives with fear, anxiety and a seemingly unresolvable grief. The journey to wholeness can seem impossible, and the paths that lead there are cluttered with distractions, obstacles and setbacks.

We may be tempted to think of healing as an “end” to the pain of memories and traumatic symptoms, but that conceptualization can lead to further discouragement all on it’s own. The reality of processing, integrating and recovering from the effects of complex traumas, or even from an extreme single event trauma, is that there is always going to be something that was lost or broken or changed in some way.

Healing means that we integrate these experiences in some way that transforms them and allows us to live with what happened within a space that also allows us the room to grow beyond the past trauma. The trauma happened. It may have played a strong role in shaping our selves and our lives, but the trauma is not who we are, not even when it is so extreme that it results in dissociative identity disorder. The Selves that take the pain are not flawed, they are columns of strength.

Art therapist, Cathy A. Malchiodi describes healing as “an inner process through which a person becomes whole, [with a] sense of being intact and undiminished, and can take place on physical, emotional, or spiritual levels”. In her book The Soul’s Palette: Drawing on Art’s Transformative Powers for Health and Well-Being , Cathy says “The miracle of healing goes beyond curing and takes place when curing is impossible.”

Healing from childhood abuse or other forms of trauma that tend to distort self-perception and destroy self-esteem can be no simple task. I have found therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapies to be inadequate and ineffective as a tool for healing from trauma. Why? For one, CBT is intended to “correct” some sort of “irrational” belief or perception about the self, the traumatic experiences, and the world by way of talking oneself out of that “misperception”. The problem with that has been that it passes right over the reality of what happened, does not make space for it, does not integrate it; one is simply *wrong* about how s/he thinks about it all, and that is *why s/he suffers*. For me, that falls far short of what I have needed for my healing process, and in many ways it has caused further psychological and emotional harm.

The verbal expression and disclosure of traumatic experience is usually associated with better mental health. On the other hand, working with and through complex traumas in ways that *dig in* and unearth the memories and feelings related to the trauma can be too threatening and overwhelming for some survivors, and even when a survivor is committed to the process, it may not always be the *best* choice to work that way. From my own experience, I can say that it worked that way for me, and I didn’t even know it was happening. Talking and writing about the trauma extensively, even in conjunction with the artwork, proved to be more of a block and hindrance than a vehicle for healing. That won’t be the case for all of us, but it may be something to question if you’re still feeling stuck in the past and in the trauma even after many years of therapy.

It can be difficult, if not impossible, for some of us to verbally disclose experiences such as sexual abuse, because those experiences are often steeped in shameful feelings and shrouded in a cloud of silence and secrecy. But in art therapy, we’re offered alternative modes of expression that do not require as much verbal processing of the trauma.

Of particular interest in the field is the use of mandalas as a tool for the symbolic expression and disclosure of traumatic events. Mandalas are often used as meditative tools in religious practice, as the circular design has been thought to facilitate psychological healing and integration. In the context of art therapy, a mandala is any form of art executed within a circle, and art therapists can use the mandala as a fundamental tool for promoting client self-expression, resolving conflict and healing. Mandalas can serve as a symbolic representation, or as a means of “coding” those experiences in a way that allows for disclosure, integration and resolution in a manner that also “contains” the experience and feelings.

It was Carl Jung who first advocated for the use of mandalas as a therapeutic tool. Jung noticed that the act of creating a mandala had a calming, healing effect that seemed to facilitate psychic integration and the development of personal meaning. While the mandala serves to symbolically represent compelling and discordant emotional material, it also implements a sense of order and unification to the material, promoting a sense of wholeness…

The “squaring of the circle” is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies. But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness.

from Mandalas. C. G. Jung. trans. from Du (Zurich, 1955)

In describing mandalas as an archetype for wholeness, Jung said

are all based on the squaring of a circle. Their basic motif is the premonition of a centre of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy. The energy of the central point is manifested in the almost irresistible compulsion and urge to become what one is, just as every organism is driven to assume the form that is characteristic of its nature, no matter what the circumstances. This centre is not felt or thought of as the ego but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self — the paired opposites that make up the total personality. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose archetypes are common to all mankind.

In my own therapy, I have attempted to use mandalas as a way to contain the emotions and events that I spent a great deal of time processing through spoken and written modes of expression along with my artwork. At some point, quite recently, it seemed to me that the way in which we were working in therapy was still *too verbal* for me.  It’s as if the words themselves were keeping the traumatic experiences alive here in the present rather than assisting in the resolution and integration of the experiences that could allow for them to be and for me to move on from them to become more wholly present in my current life experiences.

I think I spent so many years in the mental health system being looked at as an *unfixable* object of illness that was born that way and doomed to a life of mere survival, that when the etiology of my emotional problems was finally recognized for what it was, severe trauma, all I wanted to do was to tell my story in both words and images. It was a relief, but at some point along the way I got stuck in the story and the images and was not able to move on at all.

When I actively decided that it was time to move on and work differently, I made a series of mandalas that were intended to express, yet contain the feelings related to the childhood abuse and other traumas. The mandala used in this context is about going to the center of  that experience, but coming back out. I even used pieces of prints and watercolor pieces taken from previous work on those issues.

Below are my first attempts at using mandalas for this purpose.

At this time, I’m working on various ways of moving out of that stuck place, and I think I’m making progress. This is just the beginning of those efforts. I will write more about the somewhat unconventional ways in which I am working with my art therapist to gain a sense of wholeness and stability that is the essence of healing from trauma.

If you wish to create and share your own mandala, please see the Submissions page.

Filed under: abuse, acceptance, anger, anxiety, art, art therapy, balance, benefits of art, boundaries, change, child abuse, communication, coping, coping tools, creating a safe space, creativity, dissociation, dissociative identity disorder, distress tolerance, fear, flashbacks, grief, grounding, healing, healing childhood wounds, health care, hope, identity, inspiration, letting go, life lessons, loss, managing emotional distress, mandalas, memory, mental health, mindfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, processing emotional memory, rape, recovery, resources, secrets, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, sexual abuse, shame, stress, survival, symbolism, therapy, trauma, trauma therapy, violence, voicelessness   |  4 Comments

Yoga art therapy…

26Aug09

an innovative, powerfully healing approach to art therapy pioneered by Dr. Ellen Horovitz, a professor and the director of the Creative Arts Therapy graduate program at Nazareth College. Yoga art therapy integrates yoga to relax the body and mind, lowering defenses and opening up the client to the art therapy stage of the session.

Filed under: anger, anxiety, art therapy, balance, benefits of art, boundaries, change, communication, coping, creating a safe space, creativity, disability, grief, grounding, healing, health care, loss, managing emotional distress, mandalas, medical illness, medical trauma, mental health, recovery, resources, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, self-soothing, stress, therapy, trauma, yoga   |  1 Comment

Messengers of joy

20May09

Monday was an anniversary of sorts, and I didn’t quite know what to expect. I waited for the hell to rain down. But it did not come. There was peace and contentment, and life was in the here and now. I was tempted to pick it all apart looking for the pain and trauma, and I worried there was disrespect for that trauma and the selves that endured it by not looking at it.

But the opposite was true.

Now is a time of change here. Light is coming into the dark places, fear is being felt, sadness expressed. There is a greater level of acceptance for things that cannot be undone or changed. Now is a time for transforming the grief. It’s happening, because it time. I don’t know what to expect from day to day, but the journey fascinates me.

So the day was spent working on a healing project. I made a mobile from a grape vine wreath wrapped with and hung from ribbons. I made origami hummingbirds and flowers from rice paper and butterflies from patterned origami paper and suspended them from fishing line along with more ribbons and pendants made from sea glass wrapped in copper wire and also suspended from fishing line. I hot-glued dried roses to the wreath.

Origami hummingbirds and butterflies and flowers

Unfortunately, it has been a bit difficult to get a good photo of the mobile:

For whatever reasons, I was drawn to the hummingbirds and butterflies as symbols.

The butterfly symbolism is two-fold. The butterfly totem teaches change, love and transformation. In North American culture, the butterfly is often seen as a symbol of that which is carefree. In Christianity, it is seen as a symbol of metamorphosis and spiritual transformation. But the Dalai Lama explains that, rather than carefree, it is uncaring:

“The butterfly never meets its mother. It must survive independently and remains a stranger to affection.  An animal nurtured by mother’s milk, however, is dependent on another for its basic survival. A child who grows up in a cold and detached home environment is similar to the butterfly, in that kindness is sparing. Once an adult, it will be very difficult for that person to show compassion.”

This is a generalization, of course. Not all traumatized children go on to become adults that lack compassion. But I am working to connect more deeply with my compassion. I talked about that here when I wrote about my current therapy.

I recently added a hummingbird feeder to my garden. A friend mentioned that the hummingbird is the totem for joy. I decided to read about that.

In Native American culture, a hummingbird symbolizes timeless joy and the Nectar of Life. It’s a symbol for accomplishing that which seems impossible and will teach you how to find the miracle of joyful living from your own life circumstances. Hummingbird is seen by some as a messenger of love and joy. It symbolizes energy, wonder and swift action.

The pairing of these symbols makes sense to me, although it was not planned. I was just drawn to them. I am trying to open my heart. I am working to gain a healthy independence that also allows for safe emotional attachments.

Hummingbird is the creature that opens the heart. (music plays automatically at that link). When the hurt that caused us to close our hearts gets a chance to heal, our hearts are free to open again.

With hummingbird consciousness, we learn the truth of beauty. Our life becomes a wonderland of delights in flowers, aromas and tastes. We laugh and enjoy creation, we appreciate the magic of the present moment, and the magic of being alive.

As they dance the four quarters of embodied existence, hummingbird teaches us the medicinal properties of plants, and how to draw life essence from flowers. They can teach us how to use flowers to heal. Flowers embody a beautiful energy of life. We learn how to access and work with the energy to heal ourselves and others.

Hummingbirds teach us fierce independence. They teach us to fight in a way where no one gets hurt. They teach us courage. Having the courage to refrain from creating new trauma by communicating non-violently toward ourselves and others is an important part of healing. Recovering lost parts of ourselves enable us to become healthily independent.

The messengers of joy have arrived. I am transforming the past.

Filed under: abuse, acceptance, anger, art, art therapy, change, child abuse, coping, coping tools, creativity, dissociation, fear, grief, healing, healing childhood wounds, hope, identity, inspiration, joy, managing emotional distress, memory, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, recovery, self-esteem, self-image, self-soothing, sexual abuse, shame, survival, symbolism, therapy, trauma   |  4 Comments

Release

20May09

Recently I posted on a new therapy that we’d be using along with art therapy. We started that a few weeks ago, beginning with a meditation in which I was to focus on my nurturing qualities in order to connect with those aspects of a Nurturing Adult Self. It was for this meditation and future meditations that I created the healing circle.

During the guided meditation, I felt a lot of tension at times. The tension in my chest was very strong, and at times, it felt like it was pushing into the solar plexus area as well. There was a vibrating sensation in my solar plexus at one point and a feeling of pain. It also felt like a back and forth transfer of energy between the two areas. What I’ve realized is that these two areas have been in an ongoing state of pain and tension to varying degrees ever since my grandma became ill two years ago and passed away. There was a tremendous amount of  stress and chaos happening at the time, most of it with my sister, and it was bringing up many feelings related to past trauma. There have been short periods of time where there was relief, but always at least some discomfort that mostly gets ignored.

As I drove home from our first session with the healing circle meditation, the tension was dissipating a bit, and when I stopped at the store I felt the tension in the front of my chest move to my back and then out, and I was much more comfortable. When I got home I was thinking about the healing circle, and it feels like an extension of the safe space project I did for therapy last summer and a shadowbox that I recently made. I realized they each have many of the very same elements and features. The symbolism was not planned. These things were made intuitively, being built as I went along.

I decided to read about the heart chakra, and what I read really moved me. One page said:

The Heart Chakra is associated with the color green or pink. This love center of our human energy system is often the focus in bringing about a healing. Thus, the words “Love Heals All” have great truth. Hurtful situations that can effect our emotional being are divorce or separation, grief through death, emotional abuse, abandonment, adultery. All of these are wounding to the heart chakra. Physical illnesses brought about by heartbreak require that an emotional healing occur along with the physical healing. Learning to love yourself is a powerful first step in securing a healthy fourth chakra. The “wounded child” resides in the heart chakra.

This struck me as totally relevant. I was amazed, and I keep thinking how all of the emotions involved have deeply spiritual links. The safe space, “In the Thicket” was very much about the wounded child and a sense of safety and healing, and for the shadowbox, it was about love and pain being chained together. I also read this today, which led me to that idea:

Information Stored Inside Heart Chakra – connections or “heart strings” to those whom we love.

My oldest niece has been a teacher to me in many ways since she was very small. When she was four, she loved to put on music at my house and dance expressively. One day while she was dancing on the bed all dressed up like Tinkerbell, she said, “Follow your dreams. Follow the wind of your life” as she twirled around with her arms out and her head back and her eyes closed. That moment and those words have stayed with me all these years. I’ve read that one of the deities associated with the heart chakra is the Hindu lord of the wind and that Air is the associated element. The sky is a key feature in each of the three projects, but in the healing circle, the sky is limitless and undefined by any boundaries.

When my niece was six, we decorated large manila envelopes and wrote out happy and peaceful thoughts on pieces of paper to store in the envelope so that during times of feeling bad, all we’d have to do is pull out a happy or peaceful thought. It was an idea I’d gotten from a coping skills workshop. I wrote my niece’s down for her. One of her thoughts knocked me over, and I knew how very special she was. She said, “If you put a rose petal to your nose, you can smell God”. This is what I think of every time I look at or smell a rose. The scent associated with the heart chakra is rose.

My mother and I both love pink roses. They’re our favorite flowers. I also have an appreciation for the thorns. They are the natural protection for the plant. In the first two  projects, the thorns are both protection and a source of pain, but in the healing circle, I experienced them only as a source of protection, which is why they are entwined in the branches of the arch that represents the Protective Adult Self.

I came to a page that talked about healing blockages in the heart chakra. It said

One can then do different things in order to ease the process, like meditating, or practising yoga or other bodily techniques. One can even get rid of many blockages by swimming regularly, because water has healing powers.

At that point, I realized that my connection to natural places where water flows, where I can swim and even my sense of comfort and healing just sitting in the bath were probably an intuitive healing inclination. Then I realized that my choice of symbols for the Nurturing Adult Self, the heart on a chain, suspended over a body of water came directly out of this sense of knowing.

I feel very good about this path we’re taking. I’m kind of awestruck after this. It feels right, like we’ve come to a different level now, and there’s hope here. It’s kind of scary too. I feel myself being ready to let go of some things. Just a few weeks ago, I took down all of my hospital trauma-related artwork (some of which I will eventually include here) and put it away, putting up my prints and a drawing and the shadowbox  instead. I did that after making the healing circle. I was finally ready to do it, and I’m not sure what has made the difference.

I was sitting in therapy recently before we got started, thinking about how safe I feel there. I feel as safe as I do at home, which is nice. I don’t experience that anywhere else. I have always felt that sense of safety in that environment. After all that we’ve been through in trying to work together this past 16 months, some of it incredibly chaotic and painful, I feel very blessed, but also undeserving. I want to use this opportunity to learn to live a life that expresses compassion and empathy, one that creates and gives joy and deserves to feel joy as well.

So, the following week we started out by doing reiki, which has proven to be a useful adjunct to my therapy. It’s always been a relaxing, positive experience before now, but today it brought up the most intense feelings of self-hatred and anxiety, even panic. We stopped for awhile and worked on some artwork, but I was being flooded with these feelings that weren’t even really related to any memories or thoughts. It was awful. I was supposed to be working on creating an image of my Nurturing Adult Self, but I felt like a complete fraud. It was making me so distressed that I just sat there and cried. My therapist asked me if there was some other image I had in mind when I thought of  my Self. There was…an abstract painting I did a few months ago. That image is at the bottom of this post, but be warned, it may be triggering.

We tried more reiki, but I finally had to just stop and get up off the table. The feelings were overwhelming. I had no idea what was going on. It has taken hours for it to ease up. I think what happened was a release of stored emotion. It has left me feeling tired and sick. I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think maybe we need to do more of this as we go along.

*Trigger Warning*

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Filed under: abuse, anger, anxiety, art therapy, benefits of art, change, child abuse, communication, creating a safe space, creativity, developmental needs meeting strategy, dissociation, ego-state therapy, energy healing, fear, healing, healing childhood wounds, identity, loss, managing emotional distress, memory, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, processing emotional memory, recovery, relationships, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, self-soothing, symbolism, therapy, trauma, trauma therapy   |  Leave a Comment

The Healing Circle

20May09

In an earlier post I mentioned an art therapy project related to the Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy for treating childhood trauma. “In the DNMS, special guided meditations are used to help a client connect to three Resource parts of self: a Spiritual Core Self (or Core Self), a Nurturing Adult Self, and a Protective Adult Self.“

Once a client has established each Resource, all three are invited to come together as a team, to form a Healing Circle. Later, wounded child parts will be invited inside the Circle where the Resources will provide the emotional repair necessary to help them get totally unstuck.

I decided to create an actual 3-D environment as a part of this process. The candle represents the Spiritual Core Self, the birdbath with water represents the Nurturing Adult Self, and the entwined branches of the trees which form an arbor represents the Protective Adult Self.

Filed under: abuse, anger, anxiety, art therapy, child abuse, communication, coping, creating a safe space, creativity, developmental needs meeting strategy, dissociation, ego-state therapy, fear, healing, healing childhood wounds, hope, identity, letting go, loss, managing emotional distress, memory, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, processing emotional memory, recovery, relationships, resources, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, self-soothing, symbolism, therapy, trauma, trauma therapy   |  Leave a Comment

Crisis safety plan

20May09

art therapy style.

Well, okay, this is my personal crisis safety plan, discussed and decided upon by my therapist and myself.

The first thing needed is a knife…

A palette knife that is.

And some bristol board…

A little gesso to prime the bristol board…

Some brushes…

Trace 4.5 inch diameter circles on the gessoed bristol board…

Cut them out…

Get my tubes of oil paints and start mixing colors.

(Yes, I know I keep my paints in deplorable condition. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.)

Each circle I paint has to be a different color. I’ve done 40 circles here:

Sounds like a ridiculous crisis safety plan, huh?

Well, this is only part of the plan. It is a soothing, meditative sort of experience. Some other items on my list include veil painting (example here) , listening to music, burning incense, taking a bath, email a friend, or calling my therapist. Most items on the list are simple things I do on a regular basis, but in the anxiety and panic of a crisis, I may not think to do these things that can help in becoming grounded again.

If these sound like band-aids, well…they sort of are, but what am I going to expect anyone else to be able to do for me? Back in the day, I would have ended up in an emergency department, been handed or forcibly given medication, perhaps get locked up in a psychiatric unit, and none of those things have been helpful or constructive to staying stable and safe. There’s not much else to be expected from crisis intervention in the mental health system these days. I do whatever it takes to manage at home, because crisis does resolve and pass. I’ve learned that it’s much more comfortable for me to manage it at home no matter how crazy things get. It’s possible, and there’s less chaos and turmoil and a faster resolution altogether.

Those of us who have complex trauma histories may feel unable to take control and care for ourselves during a crisis, and the benefits of managing a crisis this way are self-confidence and self-esteem building. Ultimately, we have to learn to manage things on our own. I am lucky to have a therapist I can call and talk to when things get overwhelming, but in the end, it comes back to me being able to re-ground and get through the crisis. Learning that I can do this safely at home even under the most dire circumstances has been a tremendous relief.

Does this mean it’s less painful or easy to do? Hell no. But there’s no way to get through a crisis without experiencing the pain unless I decide to shut it off with chemicals, and even that can backfire on me. What I’ve also found is that using medications to blunt the extreme stress response assures that this sort of event occurs on a regular, almost dependable basis. I have to use these times to deal with what is coming up. They are learning and mastery experiences.

My therapist is somewhat unusual in her her thinking about cutting. She says it’s an option. Is that shocking? Well, she understands why her clients do it as a method of coping. It’s not that she advocates or “approves” of it, but if it happens, she isn’t going to call the police and an ambulance. She isn’t going to not speak to me. She isn’t even going to treat me with disrespect or insist I do something else. There is no judgment or condemnation. There are no threatening contingencies in this relationship. She’s staying with it even if I harm myself by cutting. For whatever the reason, having the “option” has dramatically reduced the urge and the frequency of self-injury. What my therapist has offered are alternative ways to cope with those urges. One of them is this worry stone she gave me:

The stone has edges that almost feel sharp, but nothing on the stone will cause damage to the body. It may be enough to get through the urge to SI without causing actual self-harm. Or it may not.

In the end, there’s really not much anyone can do for us during crisis that we could not do for ourselves if we have ideas in place and practice them regularly. It may sound simplistic and dismissive of the overwhelm and feelings of fear and danger that happen during an emotional crisis, but this is what I have come to understand after many years of looking to professionals to take that control and get me through it. That wasn’t working for my health and well-being in any way. Self-care is part of the ultimate goal. Knowing that I can manage has greatly decreased the frequency, severity, and duration of my emotional crises.

More on coping, self-soothing and staying grounded during crisis  here and here.

If all else fails, I have enough colored circles for one crazy ass game of Twister.

Filed under: anger, anxiety, art therapy, benefits of art, coping, coping tools, creativity, healing, inspiration, managing emotional distress, mental health, mindfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, recovery, resources, self-esteem, self-injury, self-soothing, stress, survival, therapy, trauma   |  Leave a Comment

Stuck in childhood

20May09

Things have been difficult around here recently. I’ve left school for now, so that I can focus on my own creative work (which I am doing extensively and joyfully) and really get to work in therapy. I’m seeing my therapist twice a week, during the week for a one hour session and on the weekend for an hour and a half. After all the years of those 50 minute once a week or every other week sessions of CBT and BS, it has become very clear that I was never going to get anywhere close to what was needed to be successfully treated.

My current therapist is an art therapist, and this has been a powerful therapeutic approach for me. Much of the childhood trauma I’ve experienced is hard to put into words, and starting the process with the aid of some type of visual imagery I’ve created makes it easier to process and much more accessible to language. There’s also something intensely healing in a therapy process that allows one to share memories with a safe person in a way that allows them to stand as a witness to that trauma. That is just one of the great beauties of art therapy for processing and releasing any kind of trauma.

My therapist is about to add a plan to therapy that involves a developmental needs meeting strategy approach. I find this framework interesting and potentially quite useful. I’m interested to see how this goes. In many cases EMDR therapy is used in conjunction with this process. We won’t be doing that right now, and I’m not sure I’d ever be comfortable with that. I’m also not ruling it out altogether. I just don’t know enough about it at this point in time.

Here’s a 25 minute slideshow that explains the Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy. It’s an ego state therapy designed for healing childhood wounds, and it’s used in treating many trauma-related mental health problems. It may be controversial to some people. I don’t care for the descriptors that are used for dealing with the “parts of self”, but I am not going to dismiss this out of hand. Some kind of framework is necessary for applying this approach. The underlying assumption is this:

Children grow and develop in stages. Each developmental stage involves a set of needs that should be met by parents or caregivers. The degree to which developmental needs were not adequately met is the degree to which a person may be stuck in childhood. Being stuck means that behaviors, beliefs, or emotions connected to unresolved childhood experiences can still be triggered today. For example, a person who feel confident one minute may, after something upsetting happens, suddenly see the world through the eyes of a sad, angry, or fearful child. This may explain why people have behaviors, beliefs, or emotions that they do not like or want, but which they cannot stop.

DNMS attempts to remove these blockages in development by working directly with parts of self or “ego states” to meet unmet developmental needs. The understanding is that healthy adult parts of self have everything needed to meet the needs of less developed parts of self. That said, you may be able to see how this could be useful for treating any kind of childhood trauma, and this approach is often used in treating dissociative identity disorder.

Everyone has parts of self. Perhaps you have experienced ambivalence, where one part of you wants to eat cake while another part wants to diet. You may have noticed that you have different states of mind for different roles perhaps you have a professional work self, which is different from a playful parent self, which is different from a romantic spouse self.

Some parts of self form when positive experiences happen. These are healthy parts of self that live in the present. Likewise some parts of self form when upsetting experiences happen, such as parental abuse, rejection, or neglect. These wounded parts of self are stuck in the past. Parts of self that are stuck in the past can have competing agendas, which lead to internal conflicts. These conflicts can generate unwanted behaviors, beliefs, and emotions. The DNMS aims to calm such internal conflicts by getting wounded parts of self unstuck.

We won’t be using this strategy exclusively. It’s an adjunct and a supportive framework to the therapy we’ve been doing. The first thing I am going to be working on is creating a 3-dimensional space to represent “the healing circle” that you will have seen if you watched the slideshow. The whole DNMS strategy, including an explanation of  The Healing Circle is explained here. The 3-D space is my idea, something I can use during therapy. I’m thinking of creating something similar to the “safe space” therapy project I did last summer, only on a larger scale. For those who are interested, I’ll be sharing this project here when I’ve completed it.

Filed under: abuse, anger, anxiety, art therapy, change, child abuse, communication, creating a safe space, creativity, developmental needs meeting strategy, dissociation, ego-state therapy, fear, flashbacks, healing, healing childhood wounds, identity, letting go, love, managing emotional distress, memory, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, recovery, self-awareness, self-image, self-soothing, sexual abuse, therapy, trauma, trauma therapy   |  Leave a Comment

Healing rituals and soothing emotional distress

20May09

I have found that sometimes engaging in even the simplest life-affirming tasks has a tremendous power over my sense of stability and well-being. These things may be as simple and cleaning out clutter and rearranging a comfortable, safe space, to planting a garden and tending flowers and vegetables, to creating a work of art for no other purpose than to make visible and express emotion that is sitting stagnant, causing pain.

Self care is sometimes very difficult for abuse survivors, because it can wake up and trigger feelings of unworthiness and guilt. Shame can make us feel wrong at the very core of our beings, and to care for oneself when one feels so utterly worthless, is a task that brings forth all of the pain and hurtful life lessons that have taught us that we are bad and selfish and not worthy of being cared for. Self-care may be a challenge as the old voices of abuse, or even the current ones, come rushing forth to stop us. For those of us with post-traumatic stress disorder or trauma related distress issues of any kind, these matters are often in the forefront of our daily lives.

There are things one can do to begin to take care of oneself emotionally, and this too may cause dissonance and confusion, lighting up suppressed pain. This is about making new choices…also not easy. Old ways of coping feel safe and familiar even as they cause more pain and harm. It can be a vicious cycle, a trap within hopelessness, despair and sometimes self-hatred. Doing things differently will also bring up that pain at first.

For abuse survivors it is often hard to get used to the idea that it is okay to be gentle with themselves, and that yes, there will be times we resort to less healthy ways of coping…but that’s a normal part of this journey and to be expected. Shame for one’s coping methods only breeds more pain. We are in whatever place we are in, and if we want to move forward, we need some level of self-acceptance and even self-honor for having survived and finding ways to keep going.

The small healing rituals and self-soothing behaviors can have a tremendous impact in opening up and releasing emotional pain, but in a healing context. Does the idea of doing something to comfort yourself fill you with guilt? Does it frighten you to connect with the physical end sensory experiences of your body? It may at first, and maybe for a long time. Reconnecting with one’s body and emotions is a frightening prospect for many when abuse has happened and has altered the ability to feel centered in our bodies and to accept comfort. There are less threatening ways to begin to do these things.

Some of the very simple ways of soothing I have found to work for myself are things that just about anyone could try or modify for their own needs.

My biggest standby is aromatherapy type experiences and baths.

Essential oils in an oil burner, incense, scented candles, and even fresh flowers can create a sense of well-being.

A tub filled with bath salts or scented oils is something I use everyday, and that was very difficult for me at first, because of the physical relationship to my own skin, which has been numbed for self-protective reasons. It’s difficult also, because of sexual abuse issues that have left me with a hatred for my body, and physical abuse issues that have me sensitized to expect only pain and believe I deserve only pain. Despite that, the bath as a healing ritual and self-soothing measure has proven to be very helpful in decreasing anxiety and waking up my surface, something that is often done by survivors by way of self-harm instead. It may be helpful to imagine all of the pain and guilt and shame being washed away, and let it go down the drain. To take the self-care experience further, lotions and body oils applied to the skin can be a wonderful way to comfort yourself as well as to enhance the connection to your own body. It can be a strong grounding experience.

Feeling safe to sleep can be a problem for survivors. Making an inviting, comfortable sleep area can be helpful in relieving some of the anxiety associated with going to sleep.

For survivors with food issues, from anorexia to binge-eating, taking the time to properly feed oneself is essential, although not simple. To prepare one’s own food from scratch, is a creative experience in many ways, and also an excellent way to build a healthy relationship with food, and this is especially true, I think, for those with overeating problems. Rather than grabbing some sort of pre-packaged meal or fast food and scarfing it down for immediate comfort, going to the store and choosing healthy foods, taking the time to prepare them in healthy ways, and learning how to modify recipes to one’s own liking, gives much more control over what is being ingested. The preparation itself is an independent act of self-care. Mastery of new skills like cooking can also enhance self-esteem. For me, learning to bake my own whole-grain breads from scratch, without even a bread machine, became an important tool for coping.

Not only is it a creative experience, making bread is also a very tactile experience, promoting mindfulness, as well as an olfactory experience which can enhance mood. There’s something about baking bread that has a deep metaphorical significance for me. I think it has to do with self-sustenance and the ability to provide for basic needs.

Nature is another great healing soother for me. Even when I cannot get away to the lake and the sand, or to the river valleys and waterfalls,

just caring for my plants in my little garden can get me through. Caring for others is often a double-edged sword, in that it can make us feel better about ourselves, but it can also lead to hurt where boundaries are not respected and unreasonable things are expected from us. Saying no can be hard and guilt-inducing. But caring for and tending to a growing life form can be a safe and empowering way to express the need to care for something outside ourselves. The results, the fruits of that labor always give back to us, and even those can be shared with others.

Art-making has proven itself an essential outlet in my life, and not just as a student or future professional, but for the very act of creating, which is life-affirming even when what is created is not beautiful. To make visible those things for which we have no words or for which the words are too difficult to speak, that is empowering. To find one’s voice and reclaim it, is not only healing, but a vital part of being able to identify our emotions and communicate them to others. It’s a way to express and connect. And even if one is not comfortable with sharing his/her artwork, the act of creating and going inside to give light to what is within, can be just as cathartic and empowering.

Certainly journaling can be an effective means of safely releasing thoughts and emotions, and a nice variation of this is a “soothing images journal”.

When I began art therapy, this was one of the first projects and an ongoing one, a book in which I can choose images, my own photos or ones that I find and incorporate them into pages. I also like to add decorative touches like ribbon or flat stones, which also provide a tactile quality. Even poems, quotes, or one’s own writing can be incorporated, but in this case, the journal is for soothing subjects only. It’s something to turn to when focus needs to be shifted away from images of harm or fear. It’s a nice tool for bringing oneself back to a better place after a flashback.

So, I put these out as ideas, and I know I haven’t even come close to naming all the healthy ways in which we can care for ourselves. Maybe you have other ways of coping, soothing, and promoting healing that you’d like to share. We can all learn a lot from each other.

Filed under: abuse, acceptance, anger, anxiety, art therapy, balance, benefits of art, body image, child abuse, coping, coping tools, creating a safe space, creativity, dissociation, distress tolerance, eating disorders, fear, flashbacks, grounding, healing, hope, inspiration, managing emotional distress, mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, recovery, resources, self-soothing, stress, survival, trauma   |  Leave a Comment