The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get. So many writing projects; so little time.
Mid-week offering: Wednesday Muse...
Having written about a particularly painful incident from my past, I’m getting physiological symptoms that baffle and bemuse me.
Could cellular memory REALLY recreate the pain I experienced at five, when my brother pressed the tip of our father’s African spear into my butt? Is this giant varicose vein in my anus (AKA hemorrhoid) simply a protest march of organizing cells remembering that day? Or is it coincidence? What ever it is, it’s a pain in the ass.
It has happened before. I’ve had vaginal pain within days of writing about incest and gang-rape. The writing seems to be potent, and effective at rubbing the noses of the afflicted cells in the mess all over again. Shame is a factor. I feel the cringe in my body as I commit to the page, where it may be visible to the world, these horrific events through which I’m now glad I lived, but I would rather have died back then, and often wished I had.
Degradation is just that. It’s ICKY!
Another writer I know has committed to recording in first person, present tense, the events of her youth. The times they were a troubling in those turbulent ‘60’s. We’re both glad we made it through the “free love” movement which ended up costing us and many of our sisters a whole lot - including great big chunks of our self esteem.
When using Somatic Experiencing, (one of the modalities I use with my clients), we take a post-card from the past, bring it into the present moment to heal, and differentiate THEN from NOW. Our sweet flesh doesn’t know the difference between the cringe we feel when thinking about the past, from the initial insult to our innocent bodies. Affirming the here and now as relatively safe, and swinging our attention between the brace of the past and the relative ease of the present moment can go a long way toward draining away the charge of survival energies we’ve carried in our nervous system since those long ago events unfolded. Back then, our body got all dressed up with adrenaline to fight back or run away from harm, but didn’t get a chance to complete the moves that might have saved us.
“Take THAT,” our present day elbow says, smashing the remembered nose of a perpetrator.
“BAM!” says the current knee which catches the crotch of the historical would-be perp.
It’s like the fisherman’s story, “You should see the one that got away!!
All that charge is in the muscles waiting for the opportunity to complete the moves. Survival energies are huge in the room. We welcome them in. Normalizing them can be tricky, because who would want to court those very discomforting big feelings? Who in her right mind would WANT to feel that much charge? It’s ever so much more comfortable to shush and squash them with chocolate or... (name your drug of choice).
We don't have to like it. It won't be comfortable. Leaving the brace in the body - the charge in the muscles to fester - can lead to all sorts of less manageable discomforts - and even disease processes. The ACE Study points to some of the disease processes linked to adverse childhood experiences.*
Here’s the thing: Everyone has a crutch. Some crutches are easier on the body and even prized by our culture than others, ie: Workaholism vs a heroin addiction. Whatever helps us to stand up in the morning and gets us through the day is fair game. Over time, it would be ideal to choose crutches that leave fewer scars - on us and on our loved ones.
One of my teachers says:
"You are forced to grow, to see things you
were trying to avoid seeing, and to know
yourself more and more deeply. You can
do this willingly, or you can kick and
scream all the way."
---Swami Nirmalananda
My current interest is in trying to find the least excruciating path of healing for myself and for my clients. Titrated dips into the acid bath seem doable. Maybe I’ll write just a little bit at a time.
* Adverse Childhood Experiences (the ACE Study) is described in Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease by Robin Karr-Morse with Meredith S. Wiley
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