What is it? Chronic self-attack is a common thought process that holds many people prisoner. It keeps us from living freely and affects the brain, the nervous system, and our over-all sense of wellness. Are you your own bully? Paul Gilbert, in his book The Compassionate Mind, writes, “Imagine if someone is bullying you – always pointing out and dwelling on your mistakes or things that you’re unhappy with, or telling you that you’re no good and there’s no point in you trying anything, or being angry with you – all this will affect your stress systems and level of the stress hormone cortisol in your body will increase. [Never escaping from the bully] makes you feel anxious, upset and unhappy because the threat/self-protection system in your brain has been triggered. If the criticism is harsh and constant, it may make you feel depressed. The point is: our own thoughts and imaginations can do the same… and we will be constantly stimulating our threat/self-protection system.” There is no escape or relief from the attacker. This can lead to any addiction that may hold some temporary relief. So, that’s startling. In my work with clients, I use the power of self-compassion, re-imaging in the brain, discovering where this strategy may have originated to keep-self-in-line. I use Somatic Experiencing to help regulate the nervous system and release the toxicity of the self-attack/trauma. You can find freedom and no longer be imprisoned by chronic self-attack. Set up an initial consultation with me, Laure Schwartz, and begin your healing.
Healing Anxiety, Depression, Addiction
Often times people think they are confined to a lifetime of managing anxiety, depression, or addiction. With an integrated approach to healing early developmental trauma, one can resolve that which has been unresolved in the nervous system for years or decades. Integrating Somatic Experiencing, a nervous system based trauma recovery, and repair images, one's Soul and deepest knowing, it is possible to be free of these conditions. At The Healing House, we help heal the activated nervous system and fear driven brain. Without greater understanding of what happens developmentally, we will conclude "there is something wrong with me." Actually, there is something so very right about you. Your brilliance as a little person put in place a strategy to survive. It may be time to heal the wounds and let go of a worn out strategy. Are you ready to have healthy relationships, a sense of safety in your body and emotional life, and the courage to live your more authentic life? If so, consider a 1/2 hour free consultation with Laure Schwartz, MA, Psychotherapist, Spiritual Director, Somatic Experiencing Trauma Recovery Therapist. You can book online on our front page!
Designing a Life
Emotion and Experience
It seems that many people are afraid of their emotional experience, especially if the emotion is deemed undesirable. Or if you have witnessed a strong emotion become hurtful, the promise to self becomes, "I'll never do that. I'll never let myself feel that." When an emotion is resisted, it actually becomes stronger and stronger. Emotion is actually a necessary part to the integration of your experience. The psyche needs integration and when the emotion goes into the unconscious due to rejection, life can feel chaotic, as if someone else is in charge, calling the shots. Sometimes to the point of "Why did I do that? What was I thinking? Who have I become?" Instead, I teach people how to be with their deepest experience and emotion without trying to judge it as good/bad, right/wrong. All emotion is useful and necessary for making sense of experience. Once validated and honored, the emotion moves through as if to say, "thank you for noticing."
Meditation and Fire
Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness meditation teacher writes, "There are times when you have to light one fire to put out another. There are no drugs that will make you immune to stress or to pain or that will by themselves magically solve your life's problems or promote healing. It will take conscious effort on your part to move in a direction of healing. This means learning to work with the very stress and pain that is causing you to suffer. Mindfulness meditation does not involve trying to get anywhere or feel anything special. Rather it involves allowing yourself to be where you already are, to become more familiar with your own actual experience moment by moment." No one gets to escape the human condition. While we might try to mask it for a time, our deepest experience will at some point, get our attention. And when it does, it feels like fire. May you have the courage to look into the flames with loving kindness for yourself.
One of our many back yard bonfires with dear friends who are willing to look into the flames along side us.
Discover Your Inner Healer
"The person we want most to love us is ourself. ... The sense of unworthiness, it seems, comes out of our being talked out of, trained out of, conditioned out of trusting our natural being. It is the result of being turned away from ourselves, taught to distrust ourselves. ... The more we accept of ourselves, the more fully we experience the world. The more we accept our anger, our loneliness, our desire systems, the more we can hear others and the more we can hear ourselves. When we can surrender into the moment without any attachment so that anything that arises is seen with a soft, non judging mind, we experience our completeness." Stephen Levine, A Gradual Awakening
Dogs know this. Trooper was a big part of my understanding love of self and a glimpse of completeness. Miss you buddy.
