Free-Write Friday on Saturday and Finding What Works

Belleruth Naperstek was a therapist for three decades and is the author of Invisible Heroes: Trauma Survivors and How They Heal. She’s warm and tough, has a hopeful optimism and no-nonsense directness that makes me think she’s channeling Hilary Clinton, Kwan Yin and Dr. Phil.  She loves research and studies almost as much as providing people with accessible and helpful tools to help ease or eliminate post-traumatic stress symptoms.

She believes Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) is more of a physiological condition than a psychological one. Fearless and ahead of her time, she challenges other mental health colleagues who consider PTSD incurable or don’t stay on top of what works best for people with this condition. One of my favorite quotes by her is from a Huffington Post article where she wrote:

“You can recover from posttraumatic stress. Certainly, you can significantly reduce – not just manage – its symptoms. But – and here’s the thing – not with traditional treatment. The problem is, a lot of my colleagues don’t know this yet. So they go about it in traditional ways and pronounce the condition incurable, based on the results they get. “ 

The following video has helpful information. Start the video at 2 min. and 17 sec. to hear about PTS specifically or watch the entire thing to learn about guided imagery in general.

“If you think about it, traumatic stress is the great big grand daddy of all mind-body conditions. It’s the primitive brain. It’s the mid brain that’s in survival mode. It’s totally activated. You’re not going to get to it talking to somebody here (front of head). You have to talk to them back here (back of head).  That’s where the condition sits in the brain. Guided imagery does that.  It speaks to perception, emotion, muscular reactivity, sensation. It’s all that primitive stuff. Talk and psychotherapy is not gonna touch it.”

To which I say, I want a refund or at least an apology for all the friggin talk therapy. I’ve done a lot of talking for a lot of years and it wasn’t cheap.

I know some of it was useful but I was diagnosed with PTS in the “feel it to heal it” days where if talking once a week didn’t help, coming twice was suggested. I’m glad I couldn’t afford that because it likely would have made a hard time even worse. educated about what my body needed to soothe my brain.  Luckily, I have the chance to focus on that now. writing which all engage the body and the senses and often feel fantastic.

What I realize though is how often I pull rank with my brain and boss my body around. Instead of asking, “What do I want or need?” and staying open and curious I have berated myself for feeling agitated or anxious.  I want to become a person who says even if I’m the 1 in 100 I will advocate for myself instead of comparing myself to the other 99. I’m not there yet but that’s what I admire.

I’ve spent a lot of years as a by-the-book person trying to boss myself around and order myself to get in line despite how rarely that benefits me.

Being a pacifist who wars with the self is not good for peace at the core.

So, this brings me to the free-write of the week.

Free-Write in 2 Parts

1)I War With Myself When I…….

2)Making Peace with Myself Might Mean…..