Author: JayaHollohan

I am in the midst of a 3 week Panchakarma cleanse, including diet, Ayurvedic medicines, rituals (Pujas) and body treatments in South India. The Centre is gorgeous, enveloped by mountains, covered in palm trees, with an incredibly auspicious energy that is healing us all in all ways.

The other night, the Ayurvedic Doctor gave a talk on the 3 principles for life’s happiness. Ayurveda teaches that to have a good life, we need to be in right relationship with 3 things: 1) our Soul; 2) the 5 elements; and 3) Divinity.

I mused on and greatly appreciated the wisdom of this 5,000 year old Indian health and life science.

I was also very inspired by the cross-over with Somatic Therapies, which encourage much of the same!

1) We help people to reunite the fragments of the psyche and/or Soul through body-based techniques that have fragmented during trauma so that they can reconnect to their Souls; 2) We help people to return their stress physiology and nervous system regulation back to how nature intended, pre-trauma; and 3) We often help people to reconnect to the Self or Spirituality that lies beyond trauma, to invite greater meaning beyond what has happened to us, as well as a relationship to the Divine.

These fundamental principles of human health and happiness are quite Universal, whether we are drawing on ancient or more modern wisdom. It is up to us to continue to reconnect to them so that we can find ourselves where we want to be.

If you could use some help with reconnecting to yourSelf through body-based techniques and somatic trauma integration, feel free to reach out to book a Somatic session online and/or join one of my upcoming Somatic Trainings. Your life can only become more vital, and your body your greatest home.

The Autonomic nervous system (ANS) includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, which are responsible for communicating with our organs and endocrines, including digestive (the Enteric Nervous System), heart rate, other speeding and slowing body processes, function of involuntary smooth muscles, etc.

Here is a brief breakdown of it’s parts and how we can sense when our body is experiencing different aspects of FFF or the more relaxed aspect of the parasympathetic system.

1) Ventral Vagal (VV) branch of the Parasympathetic Nervous system, which is active when we are most relaxed, and influences our heart, lungs, facial expression, intonation and vocalization, even the middle ear. It acts as the first line of defense for humans, through social engagement and befriending the other; it will tell us if we are safe or not safe. Our facial expression conveys our state, e.g. when we feel safe, our face is open and relaxed with healthy colour tone, voice is melodic using a range of tones and speech is paced (not fast or breathless).

2) Sympathetic Nervous System engages when the social engagement system does not work, which can enable huge levels of mobilization, fight/flight. We will then try to fight with arms, or flee with legs to find safety.

Fight – hold breath or rapid shallow breathing, tension in muscles, hands, feet and jaw, anger/rage, impulse to bite, kick, claw, narrow eyes, cortisol, etc.

Flight – urgency, fear, anxiety, restlessness, hold breath or rapid, shallow breathing, arousal in limbs – tremble shaking, urge to flee, cortisol, etc.

3) Dorsal Vagal (DV) branch of the parasympathetic nervous systems conserves energy and stimulates automatic at rest activities. In defense mode, this system shuts down and freezes (tonic immobility), if FF was unsuccessful because FF eventually exhausts us. It results in paralysis, hiding, disappearing, numbing, low oxygen, dissociation, shock, panic, overwhelm. Face becomes pallid, breath is shallow, pupils become small, and muscles flaccid lacking tone.

Vagal communication is coming 80% from the gut (Enteric Nervous System), to the brain so when the gut shuts down, the brain knows something is wrong. The heart, lungs and all organs slow down and the person often dissociates. (Note that the DV has rest and digest at one end of it, and freeze at the other.)

All of our organism’s health focus relates to survival. If our body is stuck in FFF, the immune, digestive, cardio systems, etc. can’t repair themselves, e.g. Neurodegenerative health issues often correlate with early developmental stressors. (Much research on this by Dr. Gabor Mate.)

When we carry these high levels of stress inside for long periods of time, our health eventually breaks down. (The higher our Adverse Childhood Experiences Score ~ ACE score, the higher chances that this may happen).

Notice what’s happening in your body as you read this. If there is constriction (hyperarousal ) or emptiness/numbness (dissociating/freezing) surfacing in the muscles, see if you can start to feel into some open, warm, fluid resources that are also within your body and/or something that is easy to look at in your environment. If you notice that you are freezing, you can also move your eyes and body using subtle or medium movements to bring yourself back into a relaxed VV Parasympathetic State.

Welcome to your Autonomic Nervous System!

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body–mind therapy focused on healing trauma by helping clients draw their attention to their bodies and befriend them again.

The sensations and experiences explored are:

• Interoceptive (i.e., internal awareness of the body)
• Proprioceptive (i.e., spatial orientation of the body)
• Kinesthetic (i.e., movements of the body; Payne, Levine, & Crane-Godreau, 2015).

Unlike other trauma therapies, SE intentionally avoids directly evoking traumatic memories and, instead approaches these memories by using the body as a gateway, exploring them gradually and indirectly by promoting more adequate, safer, and comfortable bodily experiences (Payne et al., 2015).

Within SE, stress is defined as “the inability of the complex and dynamical autonomous nervous system to recover to normal functionality” (Payne et al., 2015, p. 3), and trauma, as the constant dysregulation of the nervous system and bodily experiences (Levine & Frederick, 1997).

This means that trauma resides within the body and not in the nature of the event, and that people vary greatly in their ways of perceiving and responding to the event, depending on various biological and psychosocial variables, as well as the foundations of their own nervous systems, e.g. developmental traumas, etc.

The autonomic nervous system is dynamic and can respond paradoxically when facing stress, simultaneously activating the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems (Payne et al., 2015).

Levine states throughout his numerous books and papers, that the body can get stuck in an overwhelmed and dysfunctional response, which is reversible, though not modifiable by an external event. Instead, SE helps to renegotiate the trauma through the body so that it can discharge the trauma~related bound survival energy, and return the nervous system to regulation, assisting the body and mind’s healing.

Empirical research has shown that SE is an effective therapy for treating trauma. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are largely considered the gold standard of research and are used to test the effectiveness of therapies before applying them to wider populations.

An RCT conducted by Brom and colleagues in 2017 indicated that after participating in 15 weekly sessions of SE, participants reported a significant decrease in the severity of their PTSD symptoms and depression.

Another RCT developed by Andersen and collaborators, also in 2017, compared treatment as usual with SE in addition to traditional treatment for PTSD and chronic pain. They found that participants in the SE group reported a significant reduction in the amount of PTSD symptoms and fear of movement. Additionally, both treatment groups reported a significant decrease in pain and disability.

There are additional studies with treatment groups of natural disaster survivors that also showed significant increases in resiliency measures and a reduction in PTSD symptoms. Several follow-up measurements showed that participants reported decreased arousal, intrusion, and avoidance symptoms, with 90% reporting a significant improvement or being symptom free after eight months.

(https://positivepsychology.com/somatic-experiencing/)

This blog was summarized from the above website article. I shared it here as I thought that it would be helpful for people to understand more about the direct impacts of SE work on people with PTSD symptoms and how incredibly helpful it is in the reversing and integration of those symptoms!

I recently completed Dr. Peter Levine’s Eye of the Needle course Part 2 in San Diego on the integration of near death experiences (NDE’s). NDE’s can arise following a broad range of experiences, common ones include: cardiac arrest (heart attacks), serious accidents and injuries, surgeries, use of anesthetic, suffocation, near/drowning, life threatening illness, poisoning and high fevers, fetal birth conditions of anoxia/hypoxia, coma, concussion, severe emotional distress. Many peak experiences also resemble NDE’s.

The Eye of the Needle in particular refers to a transitional state between life and death, like thanatosis, e.g. a state of shock when all voluntary activity ceases or when one’s body is feigning death.

“A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound psychological (psycho-physiological) event that may occur to a person close to death or, if not near death, in a situation of profound physical or emotional crisis. Because it includes transcendental and mystical elements, an NDE is a powerful event of consciousness; it is not (in itself) mental illness.”

The characteristics of an NDE often include: peace, tranquility, calm, and joy; a review of one’s life and other memories; an experience of being all-knowing; a sense of hyper awareness; a deep depersonalization, including a sense of complete separation from the body; detachment and loss of emotion; a sense of cosmic unity; transcendence of the physical world and/or an experience of a void, nothingness, a realm of total non-existence.

When people experience NDE’s they transition between states of freeze, extreme pain, and terror. When they dissociate, they discover the absence of this hell realm and enter into the beatific state of non-being. People are often left needing to make sense of this experience because it can leave them in a state of confusion and stuck in one or both of these polarities ~ the hell and/or the heaven realms.

If left unintegrated, these experiences and that of the polarities following, can profoundly affect people’s day to day lives. Especially as according to a new study, one in 10 people have ‘near-death’ experiences. “Near-death experiences where people report a range of spiritual and physical symptoms, including out-of-body sensations and seeing or hearing hallucinations, affect 10% of people, according to a new study analyzing participants from 35 countries.” ~ Eureka Alert/AAAS  June 28, 2019.

Many people describe out of body experiences (OBE’s) that have not been integrated, of which 95 % occur in a medical setting. The trauma ~ hell realm and it’s opposite ~ the beatific, heavenly realms need to find their way to integrate together so that the whole being can recover physiological, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness.

When we can pass through the eye of the needle, and return to ourselves and our bodies here and now, life becomes much more livable, fruitful and real again. This is my wish for us all.

Sending so much wellness and blessings,

As babies when we have healthy attachment with attuned, available, nurturing caregivers we lay the foundations for the optimal development of our brain and nervous system. This co-regulation offered by our caregivers helps us to effectively self-regulate independently as we grow older.

“Window of Tolerance” is a term coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, which denotes normal brain/body reactions, especially following adversity. The idea suggests that we have an optimal arousal level when we are within the window of tolerance that allows for the ups and downs of emotions, e.g. hurt, anxiety, pain, anger that may bring us close to the edges of the window of tolerance but generally we can use strategies to keep within this window. Similarly we may feel exhausted, sad, or shut down but we generally can find a way to shift out of this. The below diagram demonstrates what happens when we move out of the window of tolerance into high or low arousal, experiencing activation followed by a settling.

When we experience challenges through trauma and unmet attachment needs this can drastically disrupt our nervous system’s capacity to self-regulate. Our senses become heightened and experiences and reactions are intensified and strategies are less accessible than usual. Challenging adverse experiences can also shrink our window of tolerance, e.g. we have less capacity to ebb and flow and a greater tendency to become overwhelmed. Learning how to track and shift our emotions can be a powerful tool to support and encourage regulation and integration throughout the body, mind and brains. Otherwise we can get stuck on “On” or “Off” as depicted in the below diagram:

 

Regarding hyperarousal, calm arousal, and hypoarousal.  

• Calm arousal is optimal, and we often fluctuate within various levels of calm arousal throughout the day.  However, when we become too over-stimulated by fear, pain, anger, trauma triggers, etc. we can find ourselves outside of our window of tolerance in hyperarousal.  
• Hyperarousal has excessive activation/energy often in the form of anxiety, panic, fear, hypervigilence, emotional flooding etc. This keeps our system stuck on “On” and impacts our ability to relax, often making it difficult to sleep, eat and digest food, as well as manage our emotions. If intense, it can also result in dissociative rage/hostility. 
• Hypoarousal can occur when we have too much hyperarousal, surpassing the pain/emotional overwhelm our brain/body is able to tolerate, which causes us to move into a state of hypoarousal (shutting down or dissociating). In this state our system becomes stuck on “Off” and shows up as exhaustion, depression, flat emotion, numbness, disconnection, dissociation, etc. This also impacts our bodies’ basic functions, e.g. we may want to sleep all the time, affects our appetite and digestion, and may make us feel emotionally deadened. 

However, humans have capacity to stay in one state for so long before the brain and body shifts us. For example, we can only tolerate so much pain, anxiety, fear, before the brain and body numb us to this excessive energy. Similarly people will only stay in a shut down state feeling emotionally deadened before the brain/body shifts us out of this often by gravitating towards things that make us feel alive, e.g. high risk behaviors to bring about a sense of excitement, activation, and vitality.

Without having experienced regulation in infancy and childhood or following unresolved traumatic experiences that remain activated in the brain and body, many people may grow up in a manner that they don’t know how to self-regulate. Instead, they often attempt to self-regulate and bring themselves into a calm arousal level any way they can. For example someone with excessive fear may gravitate towards a depressant to calm their brain and nervous system, whereas someone feeling emotionally deadened may gravitate towards a stimulant to make them feel alive.

Parents and loved ones can help by identifying and labeling (making observations based on how each other are presenting) “It looks like you are feeling overwhelmed, why don’t we take a break” etc.  Dan Siegel refers to this as “name it to tame it”. Naming it allows for a sense of understanding and being seen as well as validation. When we stop to notice (within ourselves or others) this can be a powerful grounding tool. Children, youth, and adults should be encouraged to focus mindfully on noticing how they feel, how their body feels, and identifying what they need to feel right again. Our goal is to essentially broaden this window of tolerance increasing capacity for people to hold emotional experiences, even those of higher intensity, without become dysregulated or going into hyper or hypo arousal.

I hope that this is helpful to better understanding and helping your own as well as your loved ones nervous systems!

I was listening to a really helpful interview with Peter Levine PhD, the founder of Somatic Experiencing (a neurobiological approach to healing trauma), and Dr. Maggie Kline, a Senior Somatic Experiencing Faculty Member, a Psychotherapist and Retired School Psychologist, that offers tools that caregivers and Somatic Experiencing Practitioners can use during these times, particularly with children. This excellent 45 min video interview can be accessed here.

In short, it shares that kids can often being frightened, confused or sad during these times because they don’t know what’s going on, especially when they pick up on the anxiety and fear of their parents. It’s important for adults to ground and balance so that our challenging emotions aren’t passed onto kids. It’s also good to let the kids know that they will be protected, kept safe, and can share their thoughts or fears with parents whenever they feel it. (Note that when adults experience external threat, they fight, flight or collapse in overwhelm; children can’t fight or flight and respond to threat by attaching to parents to create safety).

Peter Levine suggests various activities to help kids such as: making up stories together, singing, dancing, cooking, exercising and walking outside in nature whenever possible. Also practicing deep listening, and laughing together, which kid’s love and helps them to return to their natural creativity, confidence and resilience.

Here are a few Somatic Experiencing exercises from Peter Levine in an 8 min video that can help adults (and kids) to reset our nervous systems so that we feel less trapped and/or paralyzed by fear or panic at this time. Click here to access them.

There are some additional exercises in a 5 min video, also from Peter Levine, and especially for kids, that you can access here.

Keep well and finding ways to nourish yourself and thrive everyday!

Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood that can significantly impact our health as adults. Unresolved traumas can leave the body in a state of chronic stress, which releases a chronic, low-dose of inflammatory chemicals and creates unregulated inflammation that can eventually translate into symptoms and disease.

Research strongly supports the relationship between stress and physical inflammation. “For example, adults under the stress of taking care of spouses with dementia display increased levels of a cytokine that increases inflammation. Likewise, if an adult sibling dies, your risk of having a heart attack rises greatly. If you’re pregnant and face a big stressful event, your chance of miscarrying doubles. Encountering serious financial problems raises a man’s risk of falling down and being injured in the months that follow. A child’s death triples a parent’s change of developing multiple sclerosis. States of intense emotional fear or loss can precipitate a type of cardiomyopathy known as ‘broken heart syndrome’, a severe physical weakening of the heart muscle that presents almost exactly like, and is often misdiagnosed as, a full-blown heart attack.”

So if as a child you were:

• experiencing violence or abuse
• witnessing violence in the home or community
• having a family member attempt or die by suicide

Or your environment undermined a sense of safety, stability, and bonding while growing up in a household with:

• substance misuse
• mental health problems
• instability due to parental separation or household members being in jail or prison

Then your overall health may be reflecting some of these early stressors as ACEs are often linked to chronic health problems, mental illness, and substance misuse in adulthood and can also negatively impact education and job opportunities.

“The more categories of ACEs a child has faced, the greater the chances of developing heart disease as an adult… a child who has 7 or more ACEs grows up with a 360 percent higher chance of developing heart disease. More than half of women suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome report childhood trauma. People with ACE Scores of 4 were twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer than someone with an ACE Score of 0. For each ACE score a person had, the change of being hospitalized with an auto-immune disease in adulthood rose 20 percent. Someone with an ACE Score of 4 was 460 percent more likely to be facing depression than someone with a score of 0. An ACE Score of 6 and higher shortened an individual’s life-span by almost twenty years.”

“According to ACE research in the US, 64 percent of us grew up in families in which at least one thing went wrong: we’ve had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience.”

“Today more than 1,500 studies cite ACE research and the World Health Organization now utilizes the ACE Questionnaire in fourteen countries to help screen for emotional distress and trauma that might lead to poor health. In the United States, twenty-nine states and Washington DC, are using the ACE Questionnaire to help improve public health.”

Feel free to take the ACE Quiz here by answering 10 quick questions. You can also visit the official website for the ACE Study here.

“I am extremely grateful for the 8 BodyTalk & Somatic Experiencing sessions I recently received with Jaya. I have seen a tremendous shift in my mind, body and spirit. Inflammation in my body, especially my colon has reduced (when my Doctor recently tested my Rheumatoid Factor, it had lowered significantly). I have a sense of calm now and no longer feel that I am hypervigilant. This allows me to be able to attend and engaged in social activities without anxiety. It has also helped me to be more present to each moment and feel more fully alive.

Jaya is an amazing, knowledgeable, gentle healer and has the expertise to support you wherever you are. I have learned so much about myself and appreciate each session that I have. I wish everyone to experience the wonderful transformations that I have experienced with Jaya. We are worth the investment.”

– Carol, Ottawa

We all deserve to live vibrant health on all levels. It’s time to take back our lives and thrive!

• Quotes taken from, “Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal,” written by: Donna Jackson Nakazawa