Читать книгу Reclaiming Your Body - Suzanne Scurlock-Durana - Страница 9
ОглавлениеI have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.
— HERMANN HESSE
Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.
— WILLIAM JAMES
The body has its own language that is older and more primal than most of us realize. Our bodies speak to us with sensations, images, emotions, and an inner knowing that is beyond words. Have you ever had a niggling doubt that nags you for days, a vague pain in your leg that won’t go away, or a heaviness in your heart that could mean either “I need to call my mother” or “I should call my doctor”? This book will help you understand what these sensations mean and how to respond to them.
Common idioms, the little everyday phrases that people use, often capture glimpses of this body wisdom. For instance, “my heart goes out to you” is obviously not meant literally. It is a figure of speech that means “I am feeling empathy for you and am reaching out to connect.” But when you hear or read those words, how do they make you feel? When I read “my heart goes out to you,” I feel a rush of warmth in my chest, and I soften. My chest expands as I contemplate my heart energetically encompassing someone in need.
Most of us are conditioned at a very young age to turn off this inner guidance system of sensation, imagery, and inner knowing. Our priceless body wisdom is getting lost as our culture speeds up and becomes more technology driven. Compounding this issue is the fact that life’s traumas also cut us off from our body’s wisdom.
As a result, we may flounder when making decisions, we may remain in less-than-ideal or unsafe situations, and we may end up living a life that truly isn’t ours — while the whole time our body is madly signaling us with the answers and solutions we seek.
Now is the time to start listening! This book is about reclaiming this life-giving system that lies within each of us, patiently waiting to be heard.
The Beginnings of My Disconnection
When I was a young child, I felt connected to my body. I ran through the grass, climbed trees, built forts, and played outside every day and into the evenings. My heart felt as big as the sky, and life touched me deeply.
One warm autumn day, when I was almost four, a dog wandered into our front yard, and I felt an immediate bond with this gentle, golden-haired creature. It was as though we had known each other forever. I hugged him as we rolled in the grass and snuggled together for hours. I was certain this wonderful four-legged being was going to be my lifelong friend.
When I took him into the house to share my excitement, my parents informed me that I could not keep him — the dog must surely belong to someone else, and we had to find his owner.
I was shocked! I cried so hard I could barely breathe. Couldn’t they see how deeply connected we were? How could they separate me from my newly discovered old friend? I still remember the warmth in his eyes and the deep connection we shared at a heart level.
This experience sent the message that heart connections didn’t matter. My natural capacity for joy and exuberance was diminished that day.
As the eldest of my family’s three children, I was shuttled off to kindergarten at age four before I was emotionally ready. On my first day in that huge, dark old building, my mom reassured me that if I didn’t like it, she would be waiting outside to take me home.
Ten minutes into class, as I looked at the dour, unsmiling face of Mrs. Hoyberger, I knew deep inside that I did not belong there. This world felt closed in, dry, and regimented. I quietly slipped into the cloakroom and then out the classroom door. Down the hall I ran, looking for my mom. The outside door was so heavy it took all my strength to open it, but I was determined.
Once outside, I was devastated to discover that my mom had left without me. Just then, Mrs. Hoyberger grabbed me from behind and sternly ushered me back to the classroom, from which there was no further escape.
On that day, I learned to rein in my tears and my sense of being overwhelmed in order to fit in. As I grew, I began to shut down other parts of myself to create an acceptable and pleasing persona for my family and teachers.
My fear of new endeavors became a pattern that stayed with me for decades. In college, I realized that once I started a project, I was fine. But during the weeks prior to starting, I felt an anxiety that could mentally paralyze me.
Another message I internalized was that no one would actually be there to catch me if I fell — so I could truly depend only on myself. This belief made me stronger and more self-reliant, but it became harder to let other people in because I regarded my vulnerability as a liability — something to hold at arm’s length.
I was very observant and smart. I learned that when I placed my needs last and took care of everyone else first, I gained approval and love. I learned to value my intelligent, reasoning mind more than the feelings and sensations of my body.
My mother was the classic good wife of the 1950s, one who was subservient to her husband. My father, a Baptist minister, was a kind man and a deep thinker, an excellent speaker, and much loved by his congregation.
I modeled myself after my father, the parent who held all the power. I did not want to be like my mother. In the process, I didn’t realize I was moving away from my authentic self, bit by bit.
At the age of six, I remember getting the tip of my right pinkie finger crushed by the chain on our backyard swing set. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I ran into the house, blood streaming from what remained of the end of my finger.
My father quickly cleaned and dressed the wound, gently and carefully wrapping it in gauze and taping it. Then he quietly let me know that I needed to stop crying — just like that!
I so aspired to be the person my dad wanted me to be. My finger hurt like hell, but I knew that if I wanted to please him, I needed to put a lid on my pain and stop crying. So I did.
Given all this, I’m not surprised to look back now and see that, by the time I was a teenager, I lived behind invisible walls, firmly shielded from whatever I thought could possibly hurt me.
I rarely cried, only doing so when I was alone. I saw myself as the “Rock of Gibraltar,” a place of safety and strength for everyone who needed me. People loved me for my responsible caregiving, while within I felt numb and confused. The tenderness in my own heart did not get seen, much less touched. I was constantly trying to please everyone.
Mine is not an uncommon story. My traumas were not large, relatively speaking. Some might not consider them traumas at all. I certainly have been witness to friends and clients in my therapeutic practice and classes who have experienced far worse.
Yet trauma is a subjective experience. We should not judge our own traumas as being large or small by comparing them with anyone else’s experience — not even doctors can know the personal impact of an individual’s experiences and how they may be stored in their system.
As I travel and teach internationally, I ask my students if they consider their empathy and sensitivity to life to be an asset. Very few hands go up. Most of us consider our empathic abilities a liability, not an asset. Few realize that this internal capacity to feel life is what makes us fully human and allows us to function to our full potential. What I mean by healthy empathy is the capacity to sense our body, our emotions, and to walk in someone else’s shoes without taking on their issues as our own.
Ironically, despite caring about others and our empathetic responses, when we create excessive protective barriers between the world and ourselves, we unknowingly undermine ourselves. We don’t realize that these barriers may sometimes shield us from life’s pain, but they also cut us off from the juiciness of life, from our creativity and joy, and from the knowing that helps us take care of ourselves.
One hot, humid summer night when I was seventeen, I got a pivotal wake-up call that fundamentally changed the direction of my life. That evening was a typical Virginia summer night. The air felt thick and heavy. I was at a neighborhood pool party. My friend John asked if we could go somewhere and talk. I thought the request was a bit odd, but I figured he needed some sisterly advice.
John was a longtime friend, a sweet teddy bear of a guy. Unbeknownst to me, he was spinning out of control in that moment and coming down from a long stretch on amphetamines. I was clueless about the underground drug culture that was widespread around me.
We sat in the front seat of his car in the parking lot outside the pool and were having a normal teenage conversation, just “hanging out.” As we talked, I began to feel a strange but distinct uneasiness in my gut. This was not in response to the tone of his voice or the topic of conversation, yet the uneasiness continued for well over half an hour.
My thoughts were telling me it was unreasonable to feel uncomfortable with my friend, so I ignored my gut feelings. After all, he was like an older brother to me, and I dismissed my discomfort as foolish and didn’t say anything about it.
Then, I turned away from him for a moment to look out the window, and the next thing I knew his hands were around my throat. He was strangling me. He was so strong I quickly and completely passed out.
When I regained consciousness, I was trembling all over. My head was pressed against the car door. John was plastered to the other side of the front seat, behind the steering wheel, obviously shocked and horrified at what he had done. He was apologizing profusely. I, too, was in serious shock.
Every cell in my body screamed at me to get out of the car now. This time, I listened. My primal survival instinct overruled my sweet seventeen-year-old politeness. As the strength in the lower half of my body surged back, I managed to open the door, and I crawled, shaking like a leaf, across the parking lot to my boyfriend’s car, where help was waiting.
My heart felt shattered. Afterward, I soon learned why my friend had been so violent that night; he had been on drugs and was basically melting down inside. But my mental, left-brained knowing could not fix the damage. It took years of bodywork and emotional healing to melt the internal scars of fear and betrayal from that event.
In the moment, had I recognized and appreciated my gut intelligence and honored the message it was giving me, I could have avoided this life-changing trauma.
By saying this, I am not implying that what happened was my fault! This is a common response among trauma survivors, as I know from my decades of study and work with this population. Survivors may blame themselves, especially when the perpetrator is someone they know. In the immediate aftermath of my encounter, I did the same thing, wondering what it was about me that had caused this to happen.
Yet the blame was not mine, and I want to be clear that victims are not to blame for their traumas. Life happens, and even in the best of situations, we are never fully in control.
On the other hand, I also learned something valuable that forms the core of what I want to share with you in this book. This lesson can help you make the best decisions possible, regardless of external conditions and circumstances.
As I healed emotionally and physically from my traumatic experience, I became fascinated with the realization that my gut had known that something was off about sitting in that car with my friend!
Afterward, I promised myself that I would never second-guess my gut knowing again, even if the reasons for that knowing were not readily apparent on any other level.
That experience opened my eyes, and I realized that I had failed to listen to my own alarm system. My learned habits, automatic responses, and limiting beliefs had kept me from listening to and acting on my body’s wisdom.
This life-threatening trauma jolted me awake and brought me to my process of self-healing. The journey home to the wisdom of my body is my life’s work, and it is this process I share with you in this book. Not only did it enable me to heal fully, but it also has guided me in ways that helped me avoid other potentially traumatizing situations.
I hope that as more people awaken to the wisdom that lies within, fewer will experience the kind of trauma I did.
The Most Important Relationship in Your Life
Your relationships with other people throughout your lifetime — with your parents, spouses, children, friends, and teachers — will shift as time passes and situations change. As long as you are alive, however, your body is always with you.
It is so beneficial to have a strong, deep, intimate relationship with your own unique physical self.
Your body is designed to guide you, keep you safe, and bring you full vitality and pleasure. It is the vehicle through which you create and manifest your thoughts and dreams into reality.
In this book, you will discover how establishing and nurturing a healthy relationship with your body will allow you to reclaim lost parts of yourself, tap into your body’s wisdom, and better navigate your life.
Let’s begin by exploring your current relationship with your body, first by discovering what I call your “Body IQ,” or “BQ” for short. This simple baseline assessment reveals how comfortable you are in your own skin. While my main goal is to help you develop a better relationship with your body, awareness of where you stand now is the first step.
Please engage your curiosity and suspend your judgment as you answer the nine questions in the “BQ: Body Intelligence Quiz.”
BQ: Body Intelligence Quiz
Is your current relationship with your body friendly, or does it feel uneasy or unsettled? Take this nine-question quiz to find out. Don’t overthink your answers. Just circle the number that best expresses your quick “first hit” response.
1. When you think about your body…
Is your first impulse to feel appreciation for it?
Or do you judge yourself and mostly notice things you want to change?
2. When you engage in a typical daily activity…
Are you more likely to trust that you know what you are doing?
Or do you feel fearful about the outcome?
3. When a stressful situation arises…
Do you calmly and clearly problem-solve the issue, the way you might talk it over with a friend?
Or are you more likely to get confused and anxious?
4. When your body’s natural needs and urges arise for sleep, food, fluids, sex, and elimination…
Do you feel at peace with those needs?
Or are you at odds or in conflict with your body?
5. When you are stepping into something new in your life…
Do you feel supported by your body?
Or do you feel it betrays you by putting the brakes on?
6. When your body has physical issues and/or you become ill…
Do you have clarity and understanding about the nature of those issues?
Or do you feel confused and unsure about their origins?
7. When you slow down and turn your attention inward…
Do you feel deeply connected to your body and its needs?
Or do you feel detached, as though you are watching someone else?
8. When someone tells you something about yourself… Do you trust your own inner reflections and what you know to be true? Or do you automatically accept what they have said because you do not know what is true for yourself ?
9. When you are in action, thinking and doing in your world…
Are you in easy partnership with your body?
Or do you see your body as something you have to control — masterfully riding it until it does what you want?
Add up your circled numbers for all nine questions. If your score is low (under 18), you probably feel pretty comfortable in your own skin under most circumstances. If your score is between 18 and 28, your feelings of connection to your body are probably more variable. If your score is on the high side (28 or more), your relationship with your body may not be what you want it to be, but rest assured you are not alone.
Whatever your BQ score, we all live in a culture where disconnection from the sensations and signals of our bodies is rampant. The latest research on trauma and healing — which is spoken about so eloquently in The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk1 and In an Unspoken Voice by Peter Levine2 — shows that the natural first response of the body to traumatic challenges in life is to prepare to fight or flee.
If that is not possible, we tighten down, go into protection mode, and often numb out completely. Simply put, when we are helpless to stop a traumatic event, we shrink down inside or emotionally vacate the premises, freezing or dissociating, and we may even go into complete paralysis.
Once the initial trauma is over, these innate responses don’t always pass. Instead, they may haunt us for years. The brilliant navigational system of our body may be deeply compromised.
This wonderful, innate system includes the following parts:
Our heart’s capacity for inspiration, compassion, and joy
Our gut knowing
The powerful engine of our pelvis
The metabolizing capacities of our limbs (particularly our legs and feet)
The steadiness of our bones
These parts of ourselves are designed to work in partnership with one another — and with the triage areas of the brain. When unresolved trauma is lodged inside, blocking the way, the ability of this exquisite system to share its wisdom and strategies may no longer function properly.
No submarine could operate without its sonar, no driver without maps and signs. Yet most of us arrive at adulthood with many of our inner signal readers numbed out — or totally blocked.
Is It Safe or Dangerous? Pleasurable or Painful?
Dr. Stephen Porges, in his landmark work The Polyvagal Theory,3 talks about how humans operate optimally when we feel safe and connected to the world around us. His polyvagal research and theory have brought to light how healthy vagus nerve function is what helps us feel happy and connected to life.
The vagus nerve regulates the entire “rest-and-digest” part of the nervous system — the parasympathetic branch — stimulating everything from the salivary glands in the mouth to the beating of the heart to full digestion and elimination — in other words, from one end of the system to the other.
When the sympathetic part of the nervous system, the “fight-or-flight” impulse, is operating, it suppresses the functioning of the parasympathetic branch and the vagus. From an evolutionary perspective, this helped us outrun the tiger. Our bodies shifted from digesting our lunch to working our legs so we wouldn’t become lunch!
However, this means that in today’s world most of us are not operating from healthy vagal functioning due to the daily stressors in our lives as well as to past unresolved trauma. This in turn inhibits our “rest-and-digest” system, as well as the social engagement system that gives us a deeper sense of connection in each moment, which we all need for a better quality of life.
When the body’s core systems are not registering safety and nurturing connection, all our systems slow down and become depleted, leaving us in a constant state of hypervigilance, always on the lookout for the next threat.4
The bad news is that this epidemic of disconnection is everywhere. Look around and you’ll see that many people are more connected to their technology or their “to-do” list than to their loved ones.
Check out the number of parents who are on their cell phones while they are out with their children. Notice the couples checking email in a restaurant rather than talking to each other. You may even feel overwhelmed yourself, rushing through life and yet missing the joy because of a busy schedule.
Today we spend more time worrying about the future or being haunted by the past than living in the present moment. Sadly, the more trauma you have experienced, the more disconnected you may feel. But even if you have not experienced serious trauma, life in our fast-paced culture can disconnect us.
The good news is that this is repairable in a number of ways. Neuroscience confirmed the concept of neuroplasticity in the 1990s. This means that, throughout life, our brain and nervous system can grow, heal, and remodel.
Reclaiming Your Navigational System
My work for the last three decades has been about reclaiming all of who we are to restore our natural balance and our innate healing potential. Peter Levine says it so clearly, “Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”5
While your path home to yourself is unique, all paths include your body and the capacity to feel the sensations of being alive within your skin.
The journey of reclaiming these instinctual parts of who we are is an exciting exploration. In each of the upcoming chapters, you will discover a new skill that you can practice until it is mastered.
You will then be on your way to having a healthy relationship with your inner navigational system. You will have access to the vital, primal information your body provides.
Your inner radar will be up and running and fully functional.
Once most of your system is available to you again, you can easily navigate the rest of the way home as you go about living your life through openness and curiosity rather than from fear and anxiety.
Consider questions like these as you go about your day:
• What food would nourish me right now?
• Is this a healthy exchange I’m having, or do I need to speak up for myself or remove myself from this situation?
• What is my next step in this relationship?
When we’re in tune with our body wisdom, these questions become simple, curiosity-stimulating avenues that lead us back to our body — our home, our refuge, our safe place — without a lot of charge or angst.6
You can begin to feel the exquisite joy of connecting to life: the beauty of a flower or a landscape, the love of a pet, or the connection you feel with a friend or your beloved.
