I’ve been thinking about what the Cs said in this session regarding trauma and early imprinting and in which ways people can find some hope to reach that primal level and being able to be free from that type of programming. There’s a lot already on the forum about different ways in which people can work on those issues, but, as some have mentioned here, it seems that in some cases it really is a hard task.
First, I want to say that I don’t think this is a reason to feel doomed. Not being able to fully release those things seems to be part of a common human experience and not something that completely impedes learning and advancing at a soul level. As per manifesting, Pierre is an example of how much someone can accomplish and give to the world, even with that type of programming. So, I guess what I’m trying to convey is that we can continue to do good deeds, serve others and accomplish things even when those things happen, and in some cases, it may even be part of the lesson plan.
However, I’ve been very interested lately in finding tools that can help us be freer of that sort of primal level conditioning so I’ve been revising some of the things that have been mentioned previously in connection to other things that I’ve been studying recently.
I must warn that this is a long post and I don’t think it is something new, but perhaps it is helpful to try to connect some dots on this topic.
A: They both turned their anger at their mothers on themselves since it was too frightening to be angry at the mother.
Q: (L) But I thought Pierre at least had dealt with that and had identified things?
A: Not at the primal level.
Q: (L) So they were like little children inside that were really, really angry at the mother and afraid to express that anger in a fully embodied way for fear of being, what? Cast out of the mother's love? Is that it?
A: Close. Fear of annihilation.
Q: (L) So the infant fears that if the parents don't respond positively to you that you will die. Is what was driving both of them?
A: Close.
It has been mentioned on the forum already and even asked to the Cs, but what comes to mind is attachment theory. The basic idea behind the theory that isn’t usually mentioned is that attachment is considered to be a basic biological need for human beings. So, it is not just something extra that is nice, but truly something that is wired in our human biology, and, in early infancy, this is experienced as truly existential because it is existential to our incarnated experience. I say incarnated because as souls or spirits perhaps attachment isn’t existential (I don’t know), but in our 3D reality, where we are bodies which are partly mammalian, we are bound by that biological need to attach to another human being.
This is also mentioned in a similar way in the book
Healing Developmental Trauma.
NARM recognizes five biologically based core needs that are essential to our physical and emotional well-being: the need for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality. When a biologically based core need is not met, predictable psychological and physiological symptoms result: self-regulation, sense of self, and self-esteem become compromised. To the degree that our biologically based core needs are met early in life, we develop core capacities that allow us to recognize and meet these needs as adults.
Being attuned to these five basic needs and capacities means that we are connected to our deepest resources and vitality.
Our greatest desire is to feel alive. Meaninglessness, depression, and many other symptoms are reflections of our disconnection from our core vitality. When we feel alive, we feel connected, and when we feel connected, we feel alive. Although it brings mental clarity, aliveness is not primarily a mental state; nor is it only sensory pleasure. It is a state of energetic flow and coherency in all systems of the body, brain, and mind. Human beings respond to shock and developmental/relational trauma by dissociating and disconnecting. The result is a dimming down of the life force that leaves a person, to varying degrees, exiled from life. […]
It’s interesting what the
Cs said once about that book (and others):
Q: (Chu) About the book: “Healing Developmental Trauma”... We were discussing it earlier, and pretty much everybody seems to have some connection issue regardless of the survival style they developed. One possibility is that people need that as part of the "life plan" in this reality so that they suffer and then learn on a sort of fast track. And/or the other possibility is there is some kind of interference from hyperdimensional 4D STS beings to generate more suffering.
A: Why not some of both in some cases? And not to forget "past life" influences.
Q: (L) One thing I noticed about this last little set of books that I ended up on by following my nose... It was like following bread crumbs. I ended up with this Samenow, and then the Developmental Trauma book. It seems to me that these two approaches, which pretty much focus on making the changes in the now and not so much focusing on what's wrong, are probably the most practical expressions of what we have been calling The Work - as in Gurdjieffian stuff – that we’ve ever encountered. It's like we've gone through book after book after book, each one adding a bit to the picture. But this has brought it down to such a simple, practical level that almost nobody can miss it. My feeling is that something very profound is going to come out of this particular little experiment that we're doing.
A: Indeed. All in your group should read these books in order to jump start the necessary processes for achieving receivership capability. Those who have been blocked up to the present will find unblocking therein if they are able to receive.
Q: (L) So, you're suggesting that those who read and can take it on board... We've seen that happening! People are reading it, and they're REALLY getting it. Some people who have not really understood what it means when you say that your own mind can be your enemy, are finally getting it when they learn about thought errors, that emotions follow thoughts, and so on. I think it's also true that thoughts can be generated by emotions, but you can control your emotions with your thinking.
(Pierre) For some members, the realizations are very visceral. It's deeply felt, and not just an intellectual exercise.
(L) Yeah. Well, Jonathan Haidt talks about the mind-body system as a rider on an elephant. The emotions are the elephant, and the conscious mind is the rider. He gives a fairly bleak representation of this as though no rider is ever going to really be able to control the elephant. But if you follow the Samenow and the Work method along with the Pauline stoic method of dealing with your elephant, you can actually maybe grow your rider to the point where he's bigger and stronger. You can maybe give him some tools with which to control that elephant. Is that in fact the case?
A: Yes
Q: (L) The Developmental Trauma book talks about how you have to have knowledge of what's going on. That's the top-down thing. You have to know your survival style and your thinking errors so you can watch for those. At the same time, people who have been going along with these thinking errors for a long time, or those who developed thinking errors in response to a specific situation as they were growing up, also have an elephant that's kind of spring-loaded to be fractious and unresponsive to guidance and direction. That's where the bottom-up treatment comes from. It seemed to me that the neurofeedback was probably the most efficacious way because it helps to calm the brain down so that the rider of the elephant has a chance to grow and develop.
(Pierre) Yeah, and if I understand correctly, neurofeedback prevents this shift into sympathetic mode where the elephant gets all the power; once you've shifted into sympathetic mode, it's uncontrollable.
(L) Yeah, it's the amygdala hijack.
A: Good analogy.
Q: (L) You mean the rider and the elephant?
A: Yes
Q: (L) Okay. Is it possible for us to grow our rider and give him tools to better control the elephant? Is it possible?
A: Yes
Now regarding this from the latest session:
Q: (L) And so they turned this anger on themselves and basically ate themselves up inside, in a sense?
A: Yes.
There’s this from Healing Developmental Trauma:
The normal biological response to abuse and threat is deep rage and a powerful fight response. When the object of that rage is the beloved parent upon whom the child is completely dependent, children’s fear of their own rage adds to the sense of threat. In order to protect themselves and the attachment relationship children split off their rage and hatred. It is life saving to use splitting as a survival mechanism, but this adaptation comes at a great price. The child’s need to protect the image of the parent by becoming the “bad object” can leave a lifelong legacy of shame.
Splitting off rage is a powerful energetic process resulting in diminished access to strength, self-assertion, self-expression, and the life force itself. Usually, the split-off rage is turned against the self, creating a wide range of symptoms.
Seems to be a very good example of how this primal conditioning happens.
And then, again from the latest session:
(Joe) What's the lesson for someone with that issue? What's the primary lesson they learned from having that kind of experience in life?
A: You are souls first. The genetic body can be overwhelmed by early emotional, mental, and/or physical abuse. It is very difficult to reach those levels of the subconscious mind.
Q: (L) So if you can free up or release yourself from that programming, then your soul can fully manifest. Is that it?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) But without freeing up, without releasing yourself from the control or the chains of that kind of programming, you really can't... I dunno how to say it. You can't manifest something that can seriously change the outcome of sickness or something.
(Andromeda) It may be very difficult. I think what they're talking about is early imprinting.
(L) Early imprinting.
(Andromeda) It's very difficult to change.
What calls my attention is that they mentioned that we are souls first AND that it is the
genetic body that can be overwhelmed by abuse and that it is at that level that the programming occurs.
As is mentioned in the session where Healing Developmental Trauma is discussed, they propose a method that has these top-down and bottom-up approaches. Top-down approaches are very useful, but nowadays I tend to think that for many people it might not be enough, because there is that primal conditioning that happens at the genetic body level that is very hard to access, and for that, it seems that bottom-up approaches seem to be more effective. Neurofeedback is very effective, yes. I experienced that myself and it was incredibly beneficial, but perhaps some other bottom-up approaches need to be added in some cases, or other combinations of both approaches.
In one training I had on a somatic approach to trauma treatment, we studied a model proposed by Peter Levine which I found very interesting. Here’s a
short article that talks a bit about his view:
In his somatic model, Levine posits five different elements that are important and vital to a complete phenomenological experience: sensation, images, behavior, affect, and meaning (SIBAM). These five elements are sometimes graphically represented as a pentagon.
In ideal circumstances, all of these elements of consciousness freely flow and connect with one another. This is illustrated diagrammatically in the interconnectedness of each vertex with one another as seen in Figure 1.
All of the vertices of this pentagon in Figure 1 are important in creating a complete, whole phenomenological experience. That is to say, under this model, a percept of experience—the fundamental building block of our subjective world—is comprised of the overall holistic gestalt of each of these elements. When we have an experience, what is happening is we are blending together (at least) five constituent elements—the image of what is going on, the feeling and sensations that accompany that experience, our behavioral impulses that are attached to that experience, and the meaning to which we ascribe the event.
All of the vertices (or channels) are vitally important participants in creating a coherent experience. The absence—or the overarching dominance—of any of these channels in our phenomenological experience is indicative of an inability to coherently organize experience. Additionally, the over- or under-coupling of any of the vertices can create psychological pathology.
For example, someone who experiences intrusive psychotic hallucinations or visual flashbacks may be understood as somebody who is being flooded with overly dominant images that are disconnected from underlying meaning. In the case of visual flashbacks, a person's image and affect channels may be overly dominant and their meaning, behavior and sensation vertices may be underdeveloped, as illustrated in Figure 2. They may have a hard time piecing together the meaning behind the flood of image and affect. They may also freeze in their sensate bodies and feel unable to behaviorally respond.
On the other hand, someone who feels deep anxiety and then consequently compulsively driven to behave in a certain way—without understanding why—may have obsessive-compulsive disorder. This may be understood as over-coupling/dominance of their behavior-affect vertices and an under-coupling/under-development of their meaning vertex as illustrated in Figure 3.
Someone who suffers from panic attacks might be understood as someone who has an over-dominance of sensation and affect channels that is uncoupled from (perhaps under-coupled from) images, behavior or meaning. In a panic attack, two of the channels appear to dominate (sensation and affect) to the exclusion of others as illustrated in Figure 4. Experience is not felt as coherent – it is fragmented, disregulating, and dystonic.
What this model suggests—and what contemporary findings in neuroscience seem to validate—is something that we have known all along: trauma creates fragmentation in the coherence of experience. Sensation becomes separated from images. Affect becomes separated from meaning. Behavior becomes separate from affect. In the words of Yeats, the center does not hold. Our inner experience, literally, begins to fall apart.
When people attempt to recount their trauma memory, they frequently only remember fragments of their experience—the sound of a door slamming, the image of a bedpost, chills inside their body that seem to make no sense. Their world is like a scattered, torn puzzle—with pieces cast to the wind—pieces that have not yet found their way back into a whole.
With this deeper understanding of the nature of trauma, it is easy now to see how and why Cognitive Behavioral Therapy—which dominantly prioritizes only two of the channels of the SIBAM pentagon of coherent experience—cannot be considered complete. By placing primary emphasis only on the vertices of cognition and behavior, it neglects three very important aspects of coherent experience: sensation, images, and affect. It misses a very important part of the whole.
We have discussed these things in the forum as well, that is, how, for example, the autonomic nervous system responses can and do affect our thinking, behavior and even world view. Stranger to ourselves is a book that comes to mind as a particular good book on that subject, but mainly, all the research on polyvagal theory and how a nervous system that is stuck in a threat response can influence the way in which we think, emote and view the world.
Here’s a picture I like about it, perhaps it’s a bit simplistic but it conveys the idea:
So, we know all this, but again, how can we reach those levels of conditioning? That is still the question and usual with human complexity, I don’t think the answer is very simple, but perhaps it is not so convoluted either.
I still think that the focus proposed by Healing Developmental Trauma is very good as it manages to combine some CBT or top-down ideas with the more somatic or bottom-up approaches, but one question I’ve been asking myself is how exactly can one extrapolate their proposal so that it isn’t achieved only by using their specific therapeutic model?
One thing is to understand the different survival styles they describe and to understand how these become limiting (and even harmful) patterns of behavior, thinking and experiencing life. But I suppose that understanding that at the primal level involves more ‘body/sensations awareness’ and some more exploration of the subconscious in a way that is helpful and not just feeding narratives.
Awareness is the key
I’ve been researching a few somatic approaches and what seems to be key in which work best is awareness. Now, the way in which they explain this in neurobiological terms is that dissociation actually causes the brain to work in a dissociated way, the information is not associated and therefore we are unable to process that information in ‘whole’ way. They use different models of the brain to explain this: The triune brain (Reptile (ANS), Mammalian (ANS and Limbic system) and Cognitive/thinking (Neocortex), or more in terms of Polyvagal theory, or even as a right hemisphere and left hemisphere thing. I think all the models have something interesting to say, but perhaps none of them has the whole banana. The important thing is that there’s this experience of dissociation/fragmentation that seems to block a proper information processing and transform the experiences in learning. What they seem to be finding is that healing happens with the opposite of dissociation, that is the association of all these ‘brains’, ‘sides’ or parts. So, usually, these experiences are stored in the body as primal responses and reactions that are disconnected from our thinking brain. Just as an example, you could say they are stored in the right hemisphere which is more sensation and body oriented and the left-brain doesn’t have a clue about it but receives the input sent to it without being able to understand it and so comes up with narratives to explain it. So, the idea is to get that left-brain to ‘see’ and understand that information stored in the right-brain, for example. Now, I don’t think that the neurobiology of it is fully understood yet, so these are just some ideas presented by some researchers.
The reason I’m leaning towards seeing awareness as key is that bottom-up approaches that are more passive (meaning that they don’t require much awareness or conscious ‘work’ during sessions) like neurofeedback, trembling to release trauma, breathing that releases trauma, etc. are all super helpful in releasing some of that burden, but still may not reach deep levels of healing for a lot of people. Just to be clear, I’m not discarding those, I truly believe they are super helpful and perhaps enough for most people, when combined with other more top-down approaches. I just think that perhaps those tools become even more helpful when combined with consciousness and awareness during the process so that the experience can become associated in all 3 levels (reptilian brain, mammalian brain, neocortex) or 2 sides (right/left hemisphere).
There’s also this idea that the neocortex is kind of sleepy or shut-down because of trauma. As I understand it, it’s not so much that it is shut-down completely but it is shut-down from that particular information which is stored implicitly, as something that is not accessible explicitly. The idea then is to associate that information stored so that the neocortex can access it and process it. Hence, awareness. Of course, we can go beyond the neocortex and think of the soul/spirit (and the metaphorical rider on the elephant) as what brings awareness even over the neocortex, which I’m going to cover briefly later, but, it is also true that our souls kind of merge with our bodies so using the 3 brains as analogy, perhaps reminiscing the “centers” described by Gurdjieff, can be useful, I think.
Here are some excerpts from the book HDT again, just as a summary of their approach:
NARM views the mindful bottom-up experience of the body as the foundation of the healing process. The body is our connection to reality, the platform from which NARM works. By paying attention to the body, we are more easily able to recognize the truths and fictions of our personal narrative. As shock states held in the nervous system are discharged, we come into more contact with our body. A positive cycle is established in which the more self-regulated we become, the more we are in touch with our body, and the more in touch with our body we are, the greater our capacity for self-regulation.
At the same time that NARM is grounded, bottom-up, in somatic mindfulness, it uses the mindful awareness of survival styles to bring a process of top-down inquiry to our sense of self which includes our fixed beliefs (identifications and counter-identifications), our self-hatred, self-rejection, and judgments. NARM also uses inquiry to help dissolve the fixed, narrow ideas about others and the world that limit our life. Since many of our identifications develop in the first five years of life, distortions in identity keep us seeing ourselves and the world from a child’s perspective.
Whereas psychodynamic therapies focus on attachment and developmental themes with the perspective that the past determines who we are in the present, NARM explores personal history to clarify patterns from the past that interfere with being present and in contact with self and others in the here and now. It brings an active process of inquiry to clients’ relational and adaptive survival styles, building on clients’ strengths and helping them to experience agency in the difficulties of their current life. While it is true that a psychotherapist must be able to traverse difficult affects with the client, in order to avoid regression the NARM therapist always supports a mindful dual awareness of past and present—staying anchored in the bodily experience of the present moment, NARM supports the awareness of the distinction between what was then and what is now. The focus is less on why people are the way they are and more on how their survival style distorts their experience and their life in the present. Avoiding the trap of making the past more important than the present, NARM uses a dual awareness that is anchored in the present moment while exploring cognitive, emotional, and physiological patterns that began in the past.
Paying close attention to the process of connection/disconnection, of regulation/dysregulation, in present time, helps us strengthen our sense of agency, feel less at the mercy of our childhood experiences, and most importantly, it supports the re-regulation of our nervous system. It is in the connection to our body and in relationship with other people that healing is possible.
Focusing on the pain, emptiness, or rage caused by early loss, neglect, or trauma does not in itself lead to healing. The orientation in the NARM approach is to use mindful awareness to help the client tolerate strong emotion, neither acting it out against the environment nor directing it against the self. Rather than being discharged through catharsis, powerful emotional and energetic states are contained so that they can be integrated and transformed into an increased capacity for connection. Mindfully staying present to and containing intense affect increases nervous system resiliency and supports the development of emotional depth.
That reminds me of the idea presented a long time ago in the forum about the Doctrine of the Present, discussed
here,
here and elsewhere. As well as the practice of “keeping it below the neck”.
But also, thinking about that same practice, the idea of the elephant and the rider, as well as the idea of the ‘little Is’ described by Gurdjieff, somatic awareness and mindfulness, I think of the IFS model some people already mentioned in this thread as something that can be useful as a way to explore the subconscious with a framework that promotes the strengthening of the metaphorical rider in a language that seems easier to understand.
I don’t agree completely with how the IFS model is applied and I think there some wokeism issues in that field as there are in almost all of psychology nowadays, but I think it provides a useful way to think about this type of work.
Basically, the model proposes the multiplicity of mind too, saying that we have parts and the self. The self is vague in terms of what it is, some people call it ‘adult self’ others call it ‘core self’, others even call it soul. But the idea is that there is this core, wise aspect to ourselves that isn’t affected by trauma but is somewhat diminished or weakened by it, allowing the parts that are traumatized to run the show, which manifest as the ‘symptoms’ or behaviors, thoughts, emotions that are problematic.
They have those distinctions amongst parts but perhaps the details aren’t so important but more the idea that there are parts and then there is an ‘adult/wise self’. The whole idea of therapy being to increase self-leadership by unblending the self from the parts, that is, to strengthen that adult-self so that it can be in charge of the system. Also, an important view of the model is that these parts are survival strategies that helped us survive in the past, so they’re basically trying to protect us, but they do it in a way that isn’t helpful anymore. The model is called Internal Family Systems because the idea is to literally see all these parts and the self as a family inside, so the approach to them is as you would approach a family, sort of.
Now, a lot of people who read about this and I think even therapists who use this model, focus too much on the inner child and healing the inner child and stuff like that. I think that, yes, addressing those wounded parts is important, but again, awareness is key, so the first and most important part of it is to strengthen the adult-self. The whole idea is that it is the presence of self that heals and the therapy isn’t so effective without a strong self. That is why that first part is so important and the main aspect of it is the ‘unblending’ which is basically to become aware of the parts and how they hijack the system so that there’s some separation.
Of course, this is very similar to the idea of the little Is and bringing a butler to the household. Also similar to the idea of a rider and an elephant and strengthening the rider.
One way of describing it that I also find interesting is that parts are like neural networks which are running a program, much connected to the idea of "neurons that fire together wire together". If you think of it in that way and you think of how AI that are also described as neural networks work, it’s like these parts are kind of like clusters of wiring that had a job to do at some point that was very important. As with AI that only works according to what it is programmed to do, these ‘clusters of wiring’ try to solve every problem in the same way they were programmed to work, but what they do just isn’t helpful in the context they are now. So, by bringing awareness to them over time, there’s a rewiring that happens and those clusters begin to dissolve.
What’s also interesting is that you can add somatic awareness to this and approach sensations/states as parts to be aware of and cover that aspect too.
I also see a possible connection between the idea of ‘you are souls first’ and the self, and the genetic body as a place where there parts reside. I can’t say I’m sure of that but it’s an interesting thought.
There’s more to the therapeutic process as the idea is that once there is a strong enough ‘self’, one can approach the parts and ‘unburden’ them, but that usually comes AFTER strengthening the self.
I think a problem that can come up with this approach as with many others is that it is very hard to do it alone without blending with parts and becoming lost in the narrative. I would say that apart from awareness,
networking is key, as that adds another layer of awareness that is almost impossible to obtain without having a network or at least another benevolent human being who can be an anchor to reality.
It is very important to maintain the separation between parts and self (unblend) and to kind of drop the content or narrative. It isn’t so much about what the parts are saying but about understanding the basic fear they hold and allowing it to unburden. The idea isn’t about adopting their views but about observing them without judgment so that they can unburden and therefore stop taking over. By establishing this sort of relationship with our parts, those parts actually become less demanding and open up the space for the adult self to become more aware, stronger and more in charge. It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re talking here about the idea of a benevolent adult self, which doesn’t mean succumbing to the parts whims. A benevolent adult doesn’t succumb to a child’s whims but knows how to impart discipline in the household in a loving and caring manner.
Another analogy that might be useful is to think of how you tame/train a dog (or an elephant). You understand it is a dog and it behaves like a dog and you don’t expect it to think like an adult human being. By understanding how dogs behave, their instincts and their fears, etc., you are more capable of taming/training them in a loving manner. That means that sometimes you need to be assertive, strict, etc. And some other times it helps to be more flexible, etc. Things like that.
A book that explores this idea is “
Inviting a Monkey to Tea”. It doesn’t talk about parts specifically but it offers some ideas on how our mind is basically like a monkey and how to view it like that can be helpful.
*****
Well, that’s basically what I wanted to share. Again, I know this stuff isn’t new, but perhaps it can be helpful to connect some of the previous ideas shared before and remember some of the tools we have. I guess part of what I’m saying is that Laura and this network have already created something which is incredibly beneficial for us to work on ourselves. We have the tools and we’re always looking for more, which is great. But some things are just too hard to reach and require more work, that’s all.
There are other tools which I still have to learn which have been mentioned in the forum as well and seem to be promising in terms of trauma treatment and reaching more subconscious levels, for example EMDR. It would be interesting to explore those too to see if adding that to the mix can become a more thorough approach.
For me, all these tools are very useful, but it also depends a lot on whether we approach them with awareness or not, the rider needs to be awake. That’s my main thought now, anyway.
Sorry for the super long post just to say what has already been said elsewhere
. I hope it helps someone.
