“Embodied Sexuality: A Way Forward from Purity Culture”

The following was originally written for, and read at the Religion and Sexual Abuse Project.

As a white, cisgender woman growing up in fundamentalist Christianity- during the climax of the purity culture movement in the 1990’s, at the epicenter of evangelicalism, one of the most common questions I’d ask was,

“What does it mean when you feel like you’re dreaming?”

I didn’t have the language at the time, nor did anyone in my life, for dissociation.  I didn’t recognize nor understand that the shaming messages I was inundated with about my body, gender, relationships, and sexuality left me no place to go but- away from myself.  Dissociation is our nervous system’s response to ongoing trauma we cannot escape. Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, founder of the Northwest Institute on Intimacy has documented how she witnessed in her private practice as well as among her evangelical college students a shift among those who grew up before and after the movements such as true love waits, silver ring thing, purity balls, and chastity pledges. She recognized that those who grew up in purity culture were exhibiting the same symptoms as sexual abuse- even if they had not experienced assault or abuse. She coined the term “religious sexual shame” to articulate the subjective experience of those who grew up in purity culture.  Embodied Sexuality therefore becomes an antidote to religiously infused shame and trauma.

White, cisgender women do not recognize we have given up a humanity in exchange for our access to power and privilege, yet there is undoubtedly a dehumanization that happens to white, cisgender women within purity culture.   White, cis-women have played passive and active roles in white and christian supremacy, but these roles can be subverted, in part, through white, cis-women claiming agency and autonomy over our own embodied choices.  I am focusing today on white cisgender women due to the rhetoric of binary-gender and heteronormative, that is to say heterosexist language of purity culture. While my curriculum welcomes non-binary folks who are comfortable in a space that centers the female bodied experience- I have found it necessary to offer a starting point for white, cisgender women who are haven’t yet had opportunity to question their gendered and sexual identity. The course I offer serves as an introduction to the deactivation of normative categories that have become somatically lodged.  While I deeply honor those of all gender and racial identities- I offer the support of embodied sexuality for white, cisgendered women because, as the French existential philosopher and feminist activist Simone De Beavoir stated- “[I]t is more comfortable to endure blind bondage than to work for one’s liberation”. While the oppressive status of gender, race, and sexual identities that deviate from the normative categories within fundamentalist christianity are more obvious in their lack of access to privilege and power- it is more difficult to see, and therefore more comfortable to ignore for those who may fit closer to the normative categories within purity culture.  White, cisgender women were the emphasis of purity culture, and used as a trope for the advancements of christian and white supremacy. 

My emphasis on this population, aside from my own locatedness, is due to the fact that for the last 6 years I have worked in private practice as a mental health counselor primarily with white, cisgendered women who grew up in purity culture. I have seen themes within this population of a lack of connection to desire, sensuousness, boundaries, eroticism, and anger. These emotional and sensational states are not only difficult to access, but are also difficult to metabolize and wield in productive manners for self or other.  White cis-women have suffered due to the normative categories of the purity movement while being the apex of it.  This highlights the distinction between interpersonal violence and institutionalized violence.  While we must address abuse that arises from interpersonal, relational violence- too often institutionalized violence in its elusiveness goes unnoticed. The dehumanization and dissociation that occurs for white, cis-women within purity culture enable us to be used as pawns in a system that disproportionately harms bodies of racial, sexual, and gender diversity. 

While there has been a new movement of white, cis-white women promoting sexual liberation through pro-sex platforms after purity culture, too often these promotions do not acknowledge the institutionalized violence that is systemic and targeted against bodies of Color, and LBGT+ bodies within purity culture, and therefore perpetuate erasure and monopolization even within these so-called liberative practices.  Embodied sexuality, therefore, becomes not only focusing on the liberation of self, but recognizing such liberation as a framework of liberation for all. This is not to say it is a movement of saviorism, rather, an awareness that “[our] liberation is bound up together” as the Aboriginal activist Lilla Watson states.  When institutionalized violence against gender, race, and sexuality become the cultural waters we swim in we can begin to believe that this is just the way things are. That is- until we look further into the subjective experiences of those within the culture. There we find the dissociation and dehumanization that occurs within all bodies. 

When we have lack of access to our sensual selves we have lack of access to our liberation. The Nigerien-Finnish Afro-feminist author Minna Salami writes in Sensuous Knowledge that “tyrants have always known the more robotic people are the more easily controlled they are.” Embodied sexuality is the shedding of the myths that serve to control relational or sexual decisions through compulsive thoughts and behaviors.  Embodied sexuality affirms all sexual orientations- including asexuality. The asexual journalist Angela Chen reminds us in ACE:What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, that inhibition is not the only reason someone does not want to have sex; therefore, sexual liberation does not necessitate a pro-sex ethic for everyone (although for some liberation may mean being pro-sex!).

Embodied Sexuality is pro-pleasure and sensuousness.  

This invitation of sensuousness is for all bodies, with a particular focus for those that have had more access to power and privilege within these systems.  Too often power is received in exchange for humanity. What this does is generate a series of questions around what embodied sexuality is and what it may need to look like for white, cisgendered women who are engaged in a trauma healing process to regain a sense of sexual agency independent of their religious beliefs and practices. 

In my capacity as a mental healthcare professional- my work has generally been twofold.

One: creating therapeutic space for white cisgendered women to name and sense how shame and trauma impact their experiences of sexuality and embodiment.

And…

Two: perhaps the more complicated piece-is creating space for these clients to sense into the connections between disempowering religious doctrine and a racialized experience of privilege and power. The challenge is that upon first coming into awareness of this double bind between doctrine and privilege -one most often experiences a loss of privilege and therefore a place in the world.  In my therapeutic and group work I have developed a curriculum that anticipates these challenges and therefore normalizes them as white, cisgender women endeavor towards growth.  

A component of the curriculum traces the history of “purity” through Greek philosophy, religious doctrine, and ultimately- christian nationalism.  Participants can explore the scientific, psychological, and historical aspects of sexual politics while also engaging in somatic and mindfulness exercises that enable them to explore their embodied sexuality from the inside out.  Engagement of mind and body enables a subjective experience for white cisgender women that is one of embodiment. I’ve observed this experience remedies the dissociation that comes from traumatic objectification within systems of purity culture that are not disconnected from the perpetuation of white supremacy. 

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Learn more about the Embodied Sexuality Course HERE

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Register for the Unpacking Purity Culture, Sex, and Race Workshop on May 22nd HERE

Christian Nationalism: How Do We Make Sense of January 6th

For many the events of the day were surreal and unfathomable. Others saw this as the obvious outcome of the Religious Right’s rhetoric. The events of January 6th can be best understood through the lens of Christian Nationalism.  Christian nationalism is the ideology that claims the institution of Christianity is God ordained and therefore justifies whatever means necessary to keep this system in power. The system, thus charges forth as a chariot of fire and burns all that is in its path, leaving behind a wake of shattered lives and confused identities… “for Jesus”.   This system could not look more different than the example of Jesus in the Gospels.  Jesus demands his followers leave all they have and not cling to money or power. Jesus tells his followers to share their second coat and not bat an eye to visiting the sick, the needy, and the prisoner.  Jesus invites his followers to nuance, embodiment, and empathy.  He demands taking care of and welcoming the stranger (immigrant).  Christian Nationalism, on the other hand, according to Whitehead and Perry is “used to defend against shifts in culture toward equality for groups that have historically lacked access to the levers of power- women, sexual, racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.”  (see also Marie Griffith and Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Sophie Bjork-James, Sara Moslener) 

The invasion on the country's capital cited by Trump was the epitome of Christian Nationalism.  Those that besieged the capital “invoked Christ’s name” and prayed against the “communists and globalists”  All of this takes so much to unpack. But it is important to note that globalization is seen as a bad thing due to an incorrect interpretation of the book of Revelations and the heightened value of national security and borders through the myth that the United States is the “city on a hill” that is to shine brighter than any other nation.  World peace, global currency or universal healthcare are seen as signs of the antichrist which all point to a lack of understanding of apocalyptic literature.   Christian nationalism requires an emphasis on borders and binaries- the opposite of the type of community and world Jesus envisioned and invited his followers to.  

Christian Nationalism takes place when religion and hegemony meet. Randall Balmer states that “religion functions best on the margin”, but Christian Nationalism has enabled it to take up the entire page. It has white washed the page and created a homogeneous (that is to say white, Christian, straight, cis, able bodied, patriarchal) view of what a nation should look like.  When Christianity is taught in schools, offered government holidays, and the means through which we swear in our new president, it is functioning far outside of the margins. This inevitably will marginalize those of other faiths, and those who do not fit into the bounds of what evangelical Christianity deems a “moral” lifestyle.  This again is a far cry from Jesus’ invitations to take in the stranger, to love your neighbor as yourself, and to lay down your life for your friend.  

How did Christian Nationalism get so far away from the message of Jesus? It was both a slow burn with some bouts of extreme change. There are multiple gospels and epistles that were written that are not included in what is considered the Christian Bible, and we must acknowledge that what we have is a skewed picture of who Jesus was and what he said in the first place. Bart Ehrman reveals how in the year 367 Athanasius,  a Bishop of Alexandria, was the first man on record to come up with the list of the 27 books that are now canonized as The New Testament. This is 300+ years after the books were written! And beyond that… “It wasn’t until about the 5th century, around the world, people pretty much agreed on the 27 books that we have. There was never an ecumentical church council that made the final decision until finally the Roman Catholic church did at the council of Trent… in the 16th century!” (Bart Ehrman) The 27 books that remain have more to do with the convenience of the printing press than the original heart and intention in which these scriptures were written.  Elaine Pagels teaches the books that focused on feminism and personal connection to the Divine were systematically removed and deemed as “heretical”. 

Furthermore, the union of Christianity and hegemony is argued by James Carrol to have begun with Constantine.  Constantine used the image of the crucifix, an image of power and death, to represent his reign and the purpose of Christianity after he claimed receiving a message from God saying, In Hoc Signo Vinces, “In this sign conquer”.  And that the Catholic church did. For hundreds of years Rome, and then other European powers were wed to the Catholic Church- conquering and ruling over the world.  This ideology led way for Manifest Destiny that justified the murder and removal of Indigenous and Hispanic people in what is now called the Americas.  This same ideology eventually rooted itself into missions and “development” work throughout the world. 

All this to say- what happened on January 6th was nothing new for the conquering and “destiny” that is claimed through Christian Nationalism. Perhaps the primary difference is that it was not only focused on bodies of Color, but all bodies. The white evangelical church has turned a blind eye to the brutal history and legacy of Christianity against bodies of Color in the US and abroad. We must, as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “unforget.” The truth is that January 6th should not have been a shock or a surprise.  It is the inevitable outcome of decades of using the name of Jesus, the sign of the cross, and the selective misinterpretation of Scripture to invoke harm and power.  This has primarily been against Indigenous bodies across the world, as all bodies and cultures were indigenous to somewhere before being overtaken through the crusades and colonization.  The invitation of January 6th is to unforget, to learn, to educate, and to do better.  To follow the call to truly love our neighbor as ourselves, to have empathy, to share what we have and not hoard power or resources. This is essential if there is to be any hope of a future for our country and our world.  

Dear Body...

Dear body,

It’s that time of year again. You’ll see many people posting about their new year’s resolutions. You’ll see advertisements for diets and gyms. You’ll feel the pressure to purge from the way you engorged yourself over the holiday season.

Breathe.

These are expectations and demands that come from consumerism, from patriarchy and capitalism. These messages come from white supremacy and the normative categories of how your body “should” look. These are not created with the intention of what is best for you.

Inhale.

Exhale.

What is best for you is to be a body. You don’t have to be anything other. You don’t have to be taut. You can relax. Your breath is more full when you let your belly expand. It’s cold outside, and the extra food has given you energy to try to keep warm. You are doing great.

Dear body… Dear, Dear body…

I don’t want to set resolutions for you. A resolution is “a firm decision.” But you are soft. You are fluid. You don’t give way to rigidity or binary. You aren’t supposed to. No body is all or nothing. No body is completely symmetrical. No body is the same. That is part of the miracle of being a body. You just get to be. There is nothing else you can be but yourself, and I thank you for that. You remind me that I don’t have to be all things to all people all the time, in fact, I couldn’t be if I tried. All I can be is me.

My intention, rather than a resolution, is to find the freedom that comes from being me.

I am not imprisoned by your flesh. I am held by it. Enabled by it. Freed by it to be fully me. No one else in all of time has lived in this body but me, so no one else can tell me how this body should move or love or feel. As I grow in being able to listen to you, tend to you, nurture you…I grow in my capacity to allow others to do the same.

Oh body, thank you for all that you teach me.

You remind me that everyone else is a body too. Not a sinner, not a saint. Not good or bad or right or wrong, just… human. And that is just one form of body. You awaken me to the possibility of allowing myself to notice all bodies- both human and non-human. Your deep breath subtly reminds me and tunes me in to the deep breath of my beloved dog next to me.

Just breathe.

Look around.

Smell.

Feel.

Listen.

Right now all of your senses are beckoning me to be present, to be still. To just…be. You are reminding me that being present is necessary in this world that can feel overwhelming. When all I want to do is escape into business and false achievements you remind me that achievements mean nothing when you can’t breathe. So just breathe.

I can think about the past, and I can worry about the future…but I can only breathe in the present moment.

Dear body,

When I forget to be present and still… you keep breathing for me. You blink and swallow and digest and pump and pulse and contract and expand every second of every day. Everything you do is for me, to sustain me. In you I move and breathe and have my being.

Dear body… teach me to listen to your breathing. Teach me to indwell in all that you experience. Remind me again what it is to be a body, to be human. Let us go through this next year together, fully alive, from the inside out.

If you want to explore your connection to your body and your story join me in the Embodied Story Course!

Why Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training Doesn't Work

(Below is a written dialogue between Danielle Castillejo and Jenny McGrath)

It’s been a long while - close to a year and 6 months. Is anything changing? Signing off Zoom with the faces of my most recent group engagement, in the same office where it started, I am unsure. There are precious few glimpses of hope in the long-term conversations I engage with select white folks. Mostly it’s been a bust professionally, personally – systemically. I read relentlessly, theorize based on my own limited experiences, and applied for an IRB research project. Perhaps things are changing, but very little. The sheer enormity of the problem I and others are trying to address is suffocating, so I usually refuse to think about it. Yet, here I am. Again.

These last two years have been a time of great racial awakening and division.  Among the frenzy of information, books, news reports, and protests- many white Americans have awoken to the cries of people of Color that have existed far longer than 2020.  The murder of George Floyd sparked a necessary and overdue examination of our nations tapestry.  This has produced unfortunate division as certain ideologies have sought to stamp out critical race theory and exploration of systemic injustices in our world.  The other side of the spectrum; it has seemed, are the liberal white organizations seeking to rectify their wrongs and grasp for ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) training.  On the surface this seems to be a great step forward. Unfortunately, It doesn’t work. 

At least not in the way those hiring DEI trainers want it to.

In the beginning, the zoom waiting room lights up, one participant at a time. My body tingles. I’m anticipating mostly white faces, with a couple of folks of color. George Floyd’s death, me finally graduating, and the urgency to address white supremacy inspired this group: “Race and Story.” 

Palms, sweaty. Mind, sharp. Wit, intact.

Are my instincts right? Should I have asked a colleague to join me? I barely know anything. I doubt myself, which is familiar.

I’m not the first therapist of color to work in the realm of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” Many renowned interdisciplinary researchers, healers, therapists, and trainers are interested in the internal structural components of white folks, impact of their racism on bodies of color, best practices and interventions to address “white supremacy” or “racism.” 

The term “white fragility” is commonly used to refer to white folks’ internal structure and outward expression of their recognition of their racial social position in relation to bodies of color. It’s a term referring to their common collapse, becoming undone in these difficult conversations; therefore, labelled “fragile” or I think “breakable”. This phenomenon is salient and observable to bodies of color whether it is at a distance or in face-to-face encounters with white culture folks. (I’m not sure it should be called fragility. I know our group will be up against a screen full of something, whatever it is.) 

Many seeking DEI training are wanting to learn about “the other ''. They are admitting, bravely, that they have not listened to the voices of people of Color, LBGTQ+ people, disabled people, and other marginalized communities. So, it seems, they believe the way forward is to learn from “the other''. Unfortunately, this in itself is another form of colonialism, a colonialism of the psyche. It requires those seeking the training to remain unmoved by their own identity work.  This seeks to make the problem worth solving “out there.” While the intentions behind these types of explorations can be good-natured, they often come with an immaturity, an unwillingness to do the difficult work of identifying the problem as an internal one.  

White bodies, straight bodies, able bodies, skinny bodies- and other bodies who have access and privilege from these systems are also dehumanized by these systems. This is where we must begin.  

What makes you so certain this group will help? I interrogate myself.

I have no idea if our group will make any difference. I’m skeptical of my own ideas, theories. I doubt my right to identify as a Mexican – Indigenous – German woman.

Before letting them into the meeting room, my colleague and I touch base questioning one another; 

“Do we have a schedule? Who will keep time? Who is defining ‘whiteness’? Do we even know what we are doing?”

This is our attempt at something different than the DEI training we both attended at graduate school. The screen lights up with squares. As everyone pops onto the screen, in the midst of pandemic and country-wide protests, we introduce ourselves, group norms, and jump into short teaching. We both share a story to engage our own complex racial identities.

I feel each participants’ silence, smirk, black screen F-you,  or tears through the inter-webs. The faces are first and foremost, so their presence onscreen is essential. It’s a pressure cooker inside my gut. My colleague’s face constrains, as different folks engage either aggressively or tearfully. 

A  pressure cooker DEI training traumatized me. Floundering about like a salmon who’s escaped the fishnet aboard a trawler, trying to get back into the water to live, my body jumped between the white faces of that room and the faces of color. I never got back into the water, not really.

>How have we, in ourselves, become dehumanized? 

>Where can we trace our steps back to reclaim our messy, beautiful, ugly, hard, meaningful humanity? 

It is a grueling journey, and one that cannot be solved through more knowledge about history or “the other”.  It is a journey that requires a total shift in consciousness.  It requires an ability to hold the “both,and.”

BOTH- I have significantly privileged from this system of oppression so as to think I am in a place to seek out DEI training. 

AND- I have also been dehumanized by this system.  

Resmaa Menakem highlights the different collective realities for bodies of color and for white identifying bodies. In the field of psychology, the norm for diagnosis, mental health and interventions are based on an assumed common and shared reality. When we encounter the social construction of race, there is a marked difference in both experience – perceived and lived – of reality for bodies of color and white bodies. The difficulty in understanding the psychology and interventions for “white supremacy” individually and collectively lies in the shared reality that the field of psychology is a predominantly white space, presided over in its institutions, publications, and professionals which are also predominantly white. 

And, this leads to the majority of DEI – interdisciplinary interventions born from this same system. DEI work is typically in workshop form, in a concentrated period of time, with countless hours of information. We are in a system that relies on evidence – based interventions (the evidence itself being judged and studied by these same disembodied, colonized white experts) which are combinations of fill-in-the-blank forms, history lessons, and cognitive reflections on the same information. It ends up as a sort of “exposure-shock therapy meets information overload mixed with shame and guilt”. 

Anything short of acknowledging the “both/and” is saviorism.  Professor Firoze Manji so aptly reminds us that “saviors need victims”.  This is why organizations can pay thousands of dollars to receive training and remain unchanged. If they can remain in the savior mentality, if they can continue to be “one of the good ones” then they can continue to feed off of the commodity of others suffering. 

If; however, they enter into the fullness of their humanity. If they seek first the life that is theirs to live, then they will be less distracted by the tasks of saviorism that are perpetuated by the system. 

How does that heal? 

Will that stop the next white police officer from shooting an unarmed Black or Brown child? 

Will these trainings prevent the next Tamir Rice or Adam Toledo?

 Therefore, how can my colleagues and I form – even the beginning of an engagement with white folks when the common reality is one of normalized oppression built on disembodied DEI work? 

Phew. I don’t want to do that. We don’t know how to do something we haven’t done, but I trust my body. My colleagues trust their instincts. We’ve been trained to attune, connect, and embody witness to stories of perpetrators and the trauma that results. 

Why would DEI interventions be any different? Healing comes through an integrated experience of multiple emotions, body sensations, combined with imagination ignited on a cellular level – including our hearts, arms, fingers, thighs, spirits, guts, and yes, the prefrontal cortex thinking/processing brain. 

I am not saying we should not do good. I am not saying we should not learn about racism and systems of harm and not try to change them. But that is it- it is the system we need to be focused on.  Professor Manji says elsewhere, “You cannot fight poverty. What you can fight is those who make people poor.”  DEI, though well intentioned, is often misdirected.  It illuminates the other as the one who needs saving (or inclusion), rather than the system as one that needs subverting.  All the saviorism in the world is not enough to motivate us to subvert the system; however, our own humanity may be just the thing we need. If we really wake up to what we’ve been denied, what we’ve been told doesn’t exist- that is a fight worth fighting.  For ourselves.  This will ultimately include the other, as emancipation is a collective process. But we need to be fighting for emancipation, not simply reformation. We are too far down the path of white supremacy and patriarchy to simply try to reform- we need to emancipate.  And emancipation is a process that begins from the inside out.   

It begins with coming home to our body.  It is a slower, more tedious and gruesome process.  It requires us to get in touch with our own pains, pleasures, failures, desires.  It requires us to be more fully human.  We need our humanity in order to create sustainable change in our collective bodies.  This will not be possible through whiteness. This will require emancipation from the idea of being white. Again- this is holding the both and. We need to emancipate ourselves from whiteness, AND continue to acknowledge the privilege that we have from being white.  

Therefore, when we slow our story-teller down, it’s to be curious about movement of eyes, warmth or cold of their body limbs, the pace of their heartbeat. Sure, we want to know what they are “thinking” about their racial identity, but we want to know if their body is with them as we process what it looks like to disentangle from white supremacy. 

As you read this you may be dizzy, angry, unsettled. You may feel confused or frustrated.  That means you’re in the right place.  True DEI work is done through disorienting the right to comfort that privileged bodies feel entitled to. But the other side of that spectrum is white fragility that demands we “be aware of” how bad we are for being white while being unmoved. This self flagellation helps no one.  Part of the disorientation is that, for perhaps the first time, we must admit how magical and brilliant we are simply for existing as sentient beings.  We must embrace a place of existence and stay there. We cannot depart from existence or humanity if we are to see true equity. Anything short is a perpetuation of saviorism that will continue to commodify the suffering of others.  

An Ethic of Embodiment

If you know me you probably know that I love nerding out over new books. If you don’t know me…you now know this fact about me :)

Recently I have become somewhat obsessed with the book “Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times” by Alexis Shotwell. Shotwell critiques the mainstream (and privileged) idea of individual health (“healthism”). The idea that an individual is responsible for the purity of their “health” and the way we talk about it has profound impacts not just on other humans, but with all species on this planet we live. The idea of “health” in and of itself is not separate from the ableist, racist, heteronormative structures we exist in. Our ideas of what is healthy or normal need to be deconstructed. Shotwell also deconstructs the idea of what it is to be “human”, reminding us that, “[T]he cells in our body are close to 90 percent nonhuman, that we are “mostly microbe,” popularized by research coming out of the Human Microbiome Project.” (Learn more about the benefits of microbiomes HERE).

“Healthism as a possible practice is heavily racialized; people who live at the site of multiple vectors of vulnerability have less possibility for individually managing their health to resist the structural context that produces premature group-differentiated death” -Alexis Shotwell

I have been in a long, complex journey to discover what it means to be a body. I grew up in fundamental, white, Christian evangelicalism’s purity culture. Which is to say I grew up being told that my body was bad, sinful, dangerous, less-than, and generally just something to be disregarded until I got to my “real home” in heaven. This teaching and understanding involved me spending 4 years as a missionary to help “save souls for Jesus”. All the while ignoring the very real and present bodies of Color that I came in contact with, and the systems of oppression they were navigating here and now. I did not know then what I know now about white supremacy, colonialism, and racism. I perpetuated systems of harm, and continually grieve and own my part in these systems. I found as I began to honor my own body, sensations, emotions, and stories I could no longer ignore the bodies of those I was working with. This ultimately led to discontinuing my “work” in Northern Uganda. This has not meant that I am removed from the systems of white supremacy, colonialism, and racism. Shotwell reminds us that we are all entangled in the histories and systems that have been handed to us. I still exist and live on the stolen land of the Duwamish People. Shotwell borrows the concept of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz of “‘[U]nforgetting’ as an active resistance to colonialism”. To unforget is to be “against purity” or the purity myths that allow (typically white, middle to upper class, Christian, straight, able-bodied) folks to deny the entanglements in the systems that perpetuate harm disproportionately on bodies of Color, LBGTQ bodies, and disabled bodies.

When we can own the dichotomy that our body is and isn’t our own we can begin to live in ethical ways that honor all bodies. This requires a releasing of hyper-individualistic, capitalistic mindsets and embracing the very real interconnection we have with micro-organisms, amphibians, other mammals, and other so-called humans. An ethic of embodiment requires us to realize that our skin both is and isn’t a boundary to the world around us. There is no way for us to be ‘pure’ or ‘uncontaminated’ by the long history of white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism…you name it…we are in it! We are in a tangled web of individual and collective stories we cannot escape. We can; however, decide how then we want to live. We cannot decide how to live without coming to terms with the very real moment. Ethics begins with telling the whole story of how we got here so that we can realize how the past, present, and future are constantly intertwines with one another.

We must unforget the real stories of the past to write possible stories of flourishing for the future beginning in the present moment.

“A central feature of white settler colonial subjectivity is forgetting; we live whiteness in part as active ignorance and forgetting…forgetting must be an active and ongoing thing.” -Alexis Shotwell

To be against purity is to begin with some questions… (first 2 questions from teaching of Justin Robinson)

1. Who’s land am I inhabiting?

2. How did I or my people get here?

3. What is my access to privilege and power?

4. What is my ability to buy “pure” or “clean” products? What does this imply about my geographic location? Socioeconomic status?

5. What is my bias about what it means to be “ethical” as an individual? How can I begin to think more collectively about what it means to live ethically?

6. Do I think about the farmers who grow and harvest my food? The workers who provide my energy for my house? The service laborers who magically take away my waste? What can I do ethically in light of the exploitation that exists for manual laborers?

Many of us may not even have answers to these questions, and the active ignorance and forgetting becomes very real as we stumble through trying to find them. It may take conversations, research, DNA tests, google searches and more to even begin to scratch the surface of these questions. But this work is necessary and significant. It enables us to be responsible for the body we indwell and the world we inhabit. The messier we allow our stories to be the more we open up to the current entanglements in our bodies, communities, ecologies, systems, and world. An ethic of embodiment is one that invites us to live in to the interconnection we have with all that is.

Why Dance?

Let me introduce myself, well, a part of myself.  My dancer self.  I grew up as a dancer, but I also grew up in the 90’s...which means I grew up when the word “poser” was a cool thing to throw around. 

If you wore Van’s but didn’t skateboard? Poser! 

 If you claimed you were a snowboarder but weren’t riding double black diamonds? Poser!  

These subtle and not so subtle messages impacted me a lot when it came to my dancing. By the time I was in high school I was dancing close to 20 hours a week, going to various conferences and competitions that were entire weekends long, and traveling to other states for national competitions.  But I STILL often felt like a poser.  I thought that you couldn’t call yourself a dancer unless you lived in New York and were performing on Broadway or in professional ballets.  I felt this split in my identity, because dance meant so much to me and was such a huge part of me, but I thought unless I was perfect and making money from it I could not call myself a “dancer”.  This especially was true for me when I was 14 years old and broke my foot in dance class. It would be a year and a half before I could dance again, and I never felt that I got back into the technique and ability I had pre-injury.  I was only 17 years old when I started fantasizing and relishing in the “good ol’ days” of my dancing career.  I thought it was over.  To me- a dancer’s career was going to be over by the time they were 30 years old after all of the wear and tear that they put on it. You would think this may deter me, but it didn’t.  It made me want to push as hard as I could to be able to make it, and even if my body reached an abrupt decay from all of the hardship I put it through, at least I could say I made it.  But after my injury I fell into a deep depression. I wasn’t able to get the desire or the hope I had once known back, and I thought that my future career as a dancer was over.  For reasons I don’t have the time to go into here, I decided to become a missionary in Northern Uganda instead...at the age of 14.  I moved to Northern Uganda when I was only 19 years old and lived mostly by myself with various friends that became like family.  I was introduced to a Ugandan dancing crew and was invited, if not coerced, into dancing with them in various practices and performances. 

I looked JUST like you may imagine.  A white, ballet trained girl trying to move her hips and shoulders? (not to mention a girl who grew up in purity culture and felt shame about even having hips and curves in the first place) It must have been a sight to see! I felt funny. I felt awkward. But more importantly, I felt alive.  I felt a part of me that I had lost many years ago start to come alive on the dirt grounds where we would practice and move and shake.  I felt my heart begin to beat again as I took in the sound of the drums and various instruments played by the musicians in the crew. 

I need you to hear that I write this with a lot of tension in my heart and my gut.  I am holding the tension of this being a beautiful experience for me, and also knowing the harm and issues with me entering into a culture, a village so different from mine without awareness of my own impact.  I did not know then, and I am only still learning now, the impact of my skin and what it brings.  So while I write this I am combatting my own judgments of being another white missionary who was part of colonizing cultures and people.  I have a lot of kindness and pride in that 19 year old.  She was fearless and bold and loved so big it broke her body in a different way than her ankle ever did.  I cannot write my missionary years off as just “wrong”. There was also so much goodness and life that came from that time, and I also continue to hold the nuance of the harm I was complicit in through white supremacy and colonialism.

I didn’t realize that it would take the plains of a country on the opposite side of the world to bring me back to...me.  And even though I found glimpses of myself through movement as I was covered in red dirt up to my knees, it would take another decade for me to embrace what I had found.  I am still learning to embrace it...embrace her.  This dancer that lives inside of my body.  She is not a poser. I am not a poser.  I may not be the most technical...or even really have any technique left! I may not be performing professionally (although I’d lie if I said that wasn’t still a dream of mine).  But what I learned from this culture and my friends is that movement is life.  Dance has been adulterated and counterfeit as it has become prescriptive.  Most of the types of dance I grew up with never feeling good enough in are types of dance that were created by white men who did not have kindness for bodies in mind when they created “technique”.  Dance is much more than specific postures and flexibility.  Dance is an energy that courses through our individual and collective bodies.  It unites us and brings us together.  Dance dissolves our sense of self so that we can find community and union.   Evolutionary biologists believe that song and dance were what glued societies together and enabled us to form functioning communities.  

Dance is powerful, and that power scares me.  I know what it is to lose dance, and that makes me afraid to embrace it.  But I also know that in not embracing it I am losing so much of myself.  So it is my life’s work to bring myself back to my dancing body.  To make dancing feel accessible to ALL bodies.  That all abilities, skill levels, and sizes may start to feel comfortable and free in their own unique movements.  THAT is why I offer restorative movement classes.  For me… for you… for all of us <3 

If you are interested in connecting to you, your movement, your unique dance… join me for my restorative movement classes. Full monthly schedules and class information is posted on my “offerings” page. You can email me at jennifer@indwellcounseling.com to register.

The Vagus Nerve: Becoming Unfrozen

I recently went to a training in Somatic Experiencing. A protocol of trauma healing founded by Peter Levine. There were many incredible things I learned from this weekend (many of which will probably come to be posted about in this blog), but one of the breakthrough moments of enlightenment I would like to share about today is the Vagus Nerve. Many of the concepts I will share come from Stephen Porges “Polyvagal Theory”.

The Vagus Nerve seems to be somewhat of a hot topic these days in mental health, naturopathic medicine, biofeedback, and other forms of healing (yoga, massage therapy, dance therapy, etc.).

Why?

The Vagus nerve is what enables our body to move into Parasympathetic dominance (rest and digest mode). When we work to stimulate our vagus nerve we are communicating to our brain and the rest of our body that we are “safe” and that it is okay to calm down. This is taught widely in many different health circles, and may be something you are familiar with. An important distinction to note is that we have two branches of our vagus nerve: the dorsal vagal and the ventral vagal complex’s.

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The Dorsal Vagal Complex (DVC) is a more rudimentary portion of our vagus system. The DVC is what is dominant when a person (or animal) is is “freeze” mode. This occurs when signals have reached the brain and nervous system that say “there is no way we are going to be able to fight off or flee away from this threat, so we just need to play dead and hopes that the harm will pass and at some point we will be able to get out of this situation.” Essentially it is like the emergency break of a car for the nervous system. The DVC is responsible for energy conservation and giving our body the bare minimum for what is necessary to survive.

The Ventral Vagal Complex (VVC) is a more formed branch within the vagus nerve. If we stick with the car analogy the VVC is like the soft break to our system that is communicating “hey, that is a nice beach over there…why don’t we slow down, pull over, have a picnic, and enjoy it?” The VVC is responsible for our ability to socially engage, and it enables us to be oriented to our surroundings.

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When we have experienced chronic stress or grown up experiencing trauma- we are more likely to be functioning out of our Dorsal Vagal Complex. This is not something that is bad or wrong, in fact it is what the body has needed to do to survive; however, the Dorsal Vagal Complex is meant to be a short-term, temporary form of survival. Our bodies are not wired to spend long amounts of time hanging out with the e-brake on (as you can imagine the wear and tear this would put on an automobile to constantly be driving with the e-brake pulled). This is significant when we are dealing with healing trauma, because this is a nervous-system level survival mechanism. Just talking alone to someone who is in Dorsal Vagal dominance is like trying to have a helpful conversation with a deer that is in the headlights of a car (sorry for all the car analogies?) and is unable to think or move.

The nervous system needs to realize that the trauma has passed in order for an individual to begin to be able to even talk about their traumas, much less experience healing after trauma!

How does this happen?

The most basic ways we can enable the system to heal after trauma or chronic stress is by enabling the mind and body to become grounded in the present moment.

1. Take a moment to start to look around where you are. How many things that are yellow do you notice? How about green? Any other colors you become aware of? How many things that are circular do you become aware of? Are there any unique or unusual shapes that you see?

2. What do you start to notice in your mind and breathe as you allow yourself to orient to where you are? Perhaps you find your breathe has begun to slow down. It can be common to take an involuntary deep breathe as your system begins to orient to where you are.

3. Now perhaps notice sensations within the body. Are there certain temperatures, sensations, or feelings that you begin to notice in your body? What happens as your mind and body start to integrate into the moment and pay attention to your body?

That’s it! 3 simply (but not always easy) steps to beginning to be more mindful and present- enabling your Ventral Vagal Complex to start to become activated.

You may say “Hey wait a minute! I noticed that I feel angry, anxious, or some other feeling that doesn’t feel good…” That actually makes sense from a nervous system level. When our body has had to move into Dorsal Vagal dominance it is because we have experienced something that is too much for our body to handle, so often things will start to “feel worse before they feel better” as the body starts to wake up. It’s a bit like when you have pins and needles after your foot has fallen asleep. It’s not always a pleasurable experience, but it is signifying that nerve endings and feelings are coming back on line! So take time, be patient with yourself, and if it feels like the emotions or sensations that come up are too difficult to handle alone- please seek professional services to help you navigate living in a body more fully awake.

Thank you for reading!

What if you DON'T want to heal?

So often the biggest issue I see with clients is the issue of ambivalence. We wan’t to heal, and we don’t want to heal. We want change, and we don’t want change. We want different relationships, and we don’t want different relationships. We want to look different, and we don’t want to look different.

As humans we are born more vulnerable and more susceptible than any other mammal on the planet. Any peak at a national geographic film will show you that other species are able to walk within a few short hours of being born. Human children are not only incapable of walking, but they also lack the ability to find food, to communicate properly (they learn how to translate their internal cues from their mother’s mirroring), and they are unable to to do just about anything useful for their own survival for the first many years of life. Even after children are physically capable of DOING things it takes a human body roughly 16-20 years to reach a physical stature that is comparable to other full grown members of our species. Other mammals take only a year or so to reach full physical capabilities.

What does this have to do with healing?

So glad you asked!

Due to the developmental dependency that we have on our parents, families, and communities as children- we learn at a very early age (as young as before one year old!) what emotions will get us an adverse reaction, what behaviors will give us what we need, and what is acceptable and unacceptable. We are completely dependent on those around us, so our nervous system teaches us unconsciously how we need to act and what we need to do in order to remain safe within the care of those around us. If we are taught by our families, religions, or cultures that to wander outside of these societal or familial guidelines means punishment, shame, or even abandonment, we are forced with two decisions: We need to either give up our independence and autonomy in order to give ourselves a felt-sense of “security” within our tribe, or we need to give up our need for intimate relationships and leave the herd as a “lone wolf” in order to maintain our sense of agency. We learn that we need to be perfect and fit in to what is demanded of us, or we need to stand out and be the black sheep that will inevitably be ostracized. These options give us the ability to choose between ourselves or others. It is not an easy choice, but it is a necessary choice for survival. These two options work well for us… until they don’t.

By the time a client has reached my office their hyper-independence or co-dependence has cost them greatly, and they are ready for a change. But they are also not. When we have been holding on to a flotation device for our entire life and someone tells us, “It’s okay. Just cut yourself loose” We probably will feel a range of things. We may feel angry at the person who is telling us to cut ourselves off from our lifeline for being so insensitive and naive. Don’t they know we would drown?? We may also feel terrified at the idea of accepting an invitation to be free of this safety device that also works as an entrapment. We might feel giddy at the thought of being able to dive deep into the water, swim as fast as we want to, and enjoy the freedom of swimming without needing to be strapped to an unnecessary lifeboat anymore. All of these (and more) are normal and common things for us to feel when we are being beckoned into change. Our nervous system knows that we are dependent on the people around us, and if we think that our decisions and our freedom is going to cost us those relationships then we will literally feel afraid for our lives at the thought of risking it. Many of the decisions we make are unconscious forms of keeping the status quo that does not illuminate the toxicity in family dynamics, societal norms, or religious bias, for in doing so we may be shunned, and we know in our nervous system that we need others for our own safety.

So what happens when you don’t want to heal?

Be patient with yourself! Be kind to yourself! The fear that you have of change is your body telling you the risks it knows to have when you do not to conform to others or move towards intimacy. You may be more afraid to be alone, or you may be more afraid to truly be known. It is never my job as a therapist (or anyones job!) to tell you when you are ready to change, or the rate at which you should be changing. That is going to be different for every person. The more you can lean into the ambivalence the more it will illuminate the hope that just may give you courage to risk some of the changes you have been afraid to make. There are very few things in life and in the world that change, heal, or grow from us trying to force it. When we have kindness and compassion for our ambivalence we start to give ourselves the acceptance we may have never known. We can start to feel the tenderness that we are capable of for ourselves, and this brings softness to be able to receive healing. If we have learned that we need to perform in order to succeed or be a part of community, telling ourselves that same message is not helpful. It is when we can accept ourselves just as we are, where we are, that we can truly begin to transform.

Energy, Subtle Body, and The Spirit of Life

What do you feel when you read the title of this blog? Perhaps you feel excitement and curiosity into what they mean. Maybe you have a familiarity with such subjects, or maybe you feel a strong resistance and pulling away from words regarding “Energy” and “Subtle Body”. I am not asking you to agree with anything that I write about, but my one request is that you remain curious to your responses of what I write. What do you feel churning in your belly throughout this blog? What are you aware of in your breathe as you read the words? Do you feel tingly or numb? Just notice…

Over the last few years in my research on trauma recovery and the body I have found it harder and harder to ignore such concepts as energy, chakras, vibrations, and the subtle body. I have read books from Christian, Buddhist, Scientific, and Agnostic points of view, and the overlap of themes regarding energy have been staggering! I am under no illusion that I will be able to merge or even come close to merging these modalities in this blog, which is honestly one of the reasons I haven’t written a blog in a while. I have wanted to honor what I am learning, and it doesn’t feel like an easy task. But my hope is that through allowing some of the themes and ideas to come up here they will continue to flow into more succinct presentations in the future.

First off it feels important to answer WHY I think it is important to explore the themes of energy. I grew up in a Christian tradition that shunned theories from Eastern religions or medicines as wrong or bad. I find that so sad, and it makes me even more sad the more I learn about the importance of energy when it comes to healing the body, mind, and spirit.

When I think about energy there are various words that come to mind: Vibration, Spirit, life force, Eros. All of these words have the same concept: aliveness. All things, all matter, are energy.

E=MC2

This is a theory I am not going to pretend to understand in full. But what I do get is that energy and matter are one in the same. Therefore all matter holds energy within it. The keys I am typing are energy, the table in which my computer is resting is energy, the faces and bodies around the coffee shop around me all consist of energy. Even the words and the laughter that I am hearing are vibrations of energy moving through time and space to reverberate in my brain and make my neurons light up energetically in ways that translate and make sense of the energetic vibrations in my ear drums…. sensing a theme here?

Genesis 1 speaks of the beginning of the formation of matter, but begins with the Spirit of God “hovering over the deep”. Synonyms for hovering include flickering, dancing, and fluttering. This to me insinuates that the imagination of the author of Genesis held for God was of a moving, vibrant Being. To be created in this image is to be a being of vibrancy and movement. Perhaps being created in the image of God involves the ability to be able to dance, to flutter, to flicker freely.

Fear is the only emotion that has the ability to immobilize us. So when we are bound to spiritual and religious dogmas that teach us not to be curious, not to seek, because we may “fall off the path” we become locked in fear. The invitation from Jesus, however, is “whoever seeks will find.” Yet more often we are told in churches today that other people, usually white men, have already done the seeking for us. We are told to NOT seek, because who knows what we will stumble upon if we do? Fear therefore becomes the easiest thing for religious leaders to latch on to in order to build their congregations and followers. This creates a trauma bond between churchgoers and their pastors. When we are told that the mouth of God is coming out of a man and not within our own bodies, our own subtle energy, then we disconnect ourself from the very Spirit of God within us. We lose the vibration of the Living Spirit and are actually not then living into the fullness of what it is to be made in the image of God. God is love, Eros, Energy. God is within the vibration, the hovering, the flickering of our cells and neurons.

When we take time to listen to the voice of God within the quality of energy in our body we can tune in to the still, quiet voice that leads us to life and life in abundance.

This is why it is significant for me to step into realms of energy, chakras, and subtle body. So much of what it means to be fully alive has been lost in the Western version of Christianity out of fear and immobility. But perfect love casts out fear and enables us to gain back our mobility, our energy, and step into terrain of new life. So now that have answered why I think it is important, I want to talk briefly about what I think we can glean from it. But I want to pause and ask you to pay attention to your sensations, to YOUR energy. Is it stirring with excitement at what you have read? Do you find that your energy and blood is hot with anger at what I have said? I invite you to have an authentic experience in whatever is coming up for you- without judgment or expectation of how you “should” feel about what you are reading.

So what can we glean from theories of energy?

Plain and simple I will say wellness. Much more wellness than I have the breadth to go into today. But when we connect to our own energy and awareness we are able to release toxic energy that gets stored in our body from trauma. We are able to clear out energy blocks from shame and fear. When we do this our cells are able to function at full capacity, and we can have a healthier relationship to ourselves, to others, and to our world. When we remain curious about ourselves we are required to stay in a posture of openness. This brings softness and rest to our body which enables us to come out of fight-flight-freeze mode. When we are in a state of rest we can properly digest, our immune system can function at full capacity, we can produce fresh blood cells, and all of the other amazing things that our bodies know how to do naturally- if we give it the time and space to do so!

So I invite you on a journey with me. A journey to be curious and to stay open. A journey to discover what our bodies, and the voice of God, are speaking.

Recommended books:

Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine

The Jazz of Physics by Stephon Alexander

Eastern Body Western Mind by Anodea Judith

The Psoas Book by Liz Koch

What are you afraid of, really?

Fear has great potential to either be a catalyst for growth and change, or to be the cause of crippling paralysis. Fear is what enables us to run away from a burning building or dangerous animal, but if we have not had experiences of fear mobilizing us into action than we can get stuck in a cycle of freezing. Much of how we respond to fear and what we do with it is based on our early childhood experiences and what our bodies have learned to do with fear.

Most often fear is not actually about the phone call, job interview, or new career venture that we are deciding to make or not. Fear is actually about the neural connections that have fired together in the past. Our Limbic System is the part of our brain that houses our Amygdala; and our Amygdala is the primary part of our brain responsible for our fight/flight response. Our limbic brain, also known as our mammalian brain, can feel emotions (such as fear), but it does not have the rational that our prefrontal cortex (the thinking part of our brain) has. This means that our limbic system has no way to differentiate between the fear I am feeling when I need to have a difficult conversation and the fear I have felt when I was white water rafting the Nile River in Uganda. All it has the ability to say, as you may have seen in my previous posts, is “all systems red alert!!” or “it’s okay to rest, digest and chill”.

If as children we experienced chronic trauma or stress that was inescapable we can become trapped in a perpetual state of fight/flight or freeze. We may be constantly in a state of unrest that leaves us agitated and prone to outrageous outbursts, or we may be stuck in an immobility response that keeps us stuck in toxic relationships or communities without the sense of self agency to leave.

So what is it that you are avoiding?

Is it that you are really avoiding that big career change, or that boundary that you need to set for yourself with someone else? Are you really staying away from the risk of that new invention? Or book you want to write?

Perhaps are you avoiding the feeling of what it is to set that boundary or make that leap?

We aren’t taught in our Western culture to befriend our emotions. We are taught to not feel, or at least to pretend like we don’t feel. The problem is that this is a bit like ignoring a burning coal that you’ve buried under a stack of wood that has been drying out in a desert for three years. The more we try to hide or look away from our emotions, especially ones that are charged with energy because they are meant for our safety and survival - the more those emotions will come back with a fire that we cannot ignore. Sometimes this smoldering can look like an autoimmune disease within the body, sometime it can look like a forest fire of relationships that we leave in our wake because we have not chosen to address the coal in the first place.

So how do we face the fear in order to use it as a catalyst and not a hindrance? How do we harness the energy and fuel from the fire and keep it from becoming a destructive force to us and to others? I am glad you asked :) Here are some thoughts…

1. This may sound challenging and absolutely awful, and I won’t say it won’t be at first, but I believe that is actually the main reason we need to do it…

   1. stay. with. the. fear.

   2. Don’t run away from it. Don’t avoid it. Don’t hide it. But listen to it. Ask yourself; what does this fear feel like? Where in my body do I feel the fear? Is it a shudder through my entire system? Is it a hole in my stomach? Is it racing thoughts in my head? Become familiar with what the fear feels like for you.

2. After you have recognized the feelings of fear see if you can find a place in your body that does not feel afraid, or if you can access a memory of what your body felt like when you weren’t afraid. When did you feel peaceful? How did that feeling feel in your body? Where did you feel rest? Where did you feel spaciousness within yourself? Where in your body did you feel settled?

3. Now that you have built a certain level of safety within yourself come back to the fear. Has it increased? Has it shifted? Now start to ask yourself, “when was the first time I felt this way?” See if there is an age, an experience, or a memory that comes to mind. Who are the people in this memory? What is the setting? How old were you? Start to create a narrative in your mind that enables the body memory of fear to find one of the places it originated. As yourself, “How was my fear attuned to?” “who helped me overcome my fear or allowed me to feel a sense of agency when I was scared?” Some of these answers may become unsettling to you, and if they feel overwhelming return to point two and continue to build safety within yourself. Returning to the questions and curiosity about the fear when and as you are able to. Letting go of judgment and expectation of if you “should” be able to engage them now- but listening authentically to where you are at in this moment.

4. After you have located experiences when you first learned this feeling of fear ask yourself, “what did that part of me need?” perhaps there was an experience where you needed to run away or fight off someone or something and you weren’t able to. Allow your body to move in any motion that makes you feel as if you are running away or fighting something off- this can help your body complete the survival response it may not have been able to in the moment. Perhaps what you needed to receive in that moment was comfort and for someone to let you know you were going to be okay, and if that is true maybe offer yourself a weighted blanket, a warm bath, or ask a loved one that you trust to hold your and speak to you kind words letting you know you will be okay. In whatever seems right for you pay attention to your breath. See if you can allow long, deep, slow breaths to fill your entire belly and chest; this will help make sure you are staying in parasympathetic (peaceful) dominance and not re-traumatizing yourself. This can begin to give your nervous system a new experience of what fear is and let you know you are not stuck in a memory where you didn’t have choice or the ability to run or fight. You are safe now.

5. Come back to point two- maybe even with increased awareness of places of safety within yourself that you have found. Maybe you have found a new level of agency and support that you are able to offer yourself. Perhaps you have now grown a sense of confidence that you can do scary things and still survive. Continue paying attention to and trying to expand and slow down your breathing.

6. See if you can take this breath and safety with you into whatever that risky and scary endeavor you need to make is. Come back to your place of safety within the fear; allowing yourself to move fluidly between fear and peace; and go for it!

7. If you found yourself still unable to engage the fear- that is okay! Perhaps you are not ready to, and it may be helpful for you to find a professional that can help you address the themes of fear or terror with you.

Often times the most dangerous thing about fear is how it can be latched on to by people or systems that wish to use it against those that are afraid.

By building our capacity to face our fears and learn what soothing and comfort feel like we can start to reclaim parts of ourselves that feel oppressed and stuck in systems or relationships that are unhealthy for us. We can start to grow our autonomy and safety within ourselves that give us greater capacity to seek out safe and healthy relationships and communities with others.

Thanks for reading!

The Enteric Nervous System: Why is it significant for mental health?

Have you ever heard of the Enteric Nervous System? I hadn’t either until a few years ago. The Enteric Nervous System (ENS) serves as a deeply important part of our overall health, as it impacts the movement and flexion of the Gastrointestinal system running from the esophagus all the way to the rectum.

You may (or may not) be familiar with the two more well-known aspects of our Autonomic Nervous System: Sympathetic (used for our fight, flight resources) and Parasympathetic (our rest and digest resource). The Enteric Nervous System is also part of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), but it has now been recognized as its own branch, since it can function without the other branches of the ANS.

Photo by sankalpmaya/iStock / Getty Images

A few key things to know about the Enteric Nervous System would be:

• It has more nerve cells than your entire spinal cord

• 90% or more of the bodies Serotonin and half of the bodies Dopamine lies in the gut

  • Serotonin plays a key role in regulating mood, social behavior, appetite, digestion, sleep, memory, and sexual desire and function

  • Dopamine is correlated with our reward-motivated behavior and impacts body movements as well as emotional responses

• There are many conditions associated with Enteric Nervous System such as:

  • Irritable Bowel Syndrome

  • Crohn’s and other forms of Colitis

  • Reflux, Acid Reflux, and more…

    • (References from video link below)

This means is that the gut (and more exactly the Enteric Nervous System) really is the bodies second brain.

Why is this significant?

For too long psychology has functioned as if we are floating heads, and it has ignored the constant and significant interplay of the mind and body. Candace Pert PhD, a neuroscientist who discovered how emotions are stored at a neuropeptide level within the body writes:

“Most psychologists treat the mind as disembodied, a phenomenon with little or no connection to the physical body. Conversely physicians treat the body with no regard to the mind or the emotions. But the body and mind are not separate, and we cannot treat one without the other”.

Not only are the mind and body not separate, but research into the Enteric Nervous System shows that the mind is IN the body. Because the neurotransmitter’s Dopamine and Serotonin are responsible for our mood and our bodily functions, and are predominantly located within the belly, this part of the body must be engaged if we are to pursue holistic healing. The ENS does have the ability to function on its own; however, because of its proximity and correlation to the PSNS and SNS it is impacted by the bodies state of stress vs. rest. This means that taking care of our gut involves what we eat, but it also involves the stress that we are surrounded by.

• Ways to assist the functioning of your ENS:

  • Eat whole, unprocessed foods

  • Learn if you have any food allergies or intolerance and avoid such foods

  • Find ways to build up your digestive enzymes through probiotics

  • Allow yourself to have moments of relaxation:

    • Take a walk in nature and find a peaceful place to sit and just be

    • Take a bath with some essential oils and calming music

    • Participate in a yoga or mindfulness class

  • Talk to a somatically informed mental health counselor if you have felt a state of stress, anxiety, or depression

  • Get exercise in order to assist your bodies boosts of feel-good hormones

Gut issues and sensitivities, just like mood concerns, should not be ignored. The good news there is hope if you have struggled with issues such as constipation, diarrhea, IBS, or other gastrointestinal issues. The body never lies, and if you have struggled with any of these the chance is your body is communicating something to you. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you continue to take the next few moments to listen to your gut. Listen to the rumblings or the stillness. Listen to the movement or congestion. What may your gut be telling you about your mental and physical state of wellbeing? All the best on your journey to healing!

((I am not a medical doctor and the above is based on personal research and opinion. It is not intended for medical advice. You should always consult your doctor when it comes to physical health.))

Resources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dopamine

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/kc/serotonin-facts-232248

http://candacepert.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXx4WTVU34Y

The Psoas and Chronic Stress/ Trauma

Muscle of Survival

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or scientist. The following is anecdotal evidence based on the work of Liz Koch who has been working with the Psoas Muscle for over 30 years. It is always important to talk to your doctor if you are experiencing physical issues. The following is not medical advice or mental health advice.

Our Psoas Muscle is known as the “fight-flight” muscle. As you can see in the picture below- the Psoas connects our lumbar spine to our inner thighs by running through our hip joint. The connection between our back and our legs enables us to run and kick. These are the two primary functions that we need in “fight-flight” mode (hence the name!)

When our nervous system senses that we are in danger it alerts our Psoas to fire up. This enables us to be ready to run away from a lion that is chasing us, or to fight off another predator that may be more of our match. The neural connection between our brain and our muscles is a two way street. Just as the brain tells the Psoas to fire up; when the Psoas is in flexion it is sending neural messages to the brain saying “we are in danger and are going to need some support!” When the brain gets this message from our tense muscles our nervous fires out cortisol and adrenalin needed to preserve our life.

Obviously our Psoas is pretty significant when it comes to survival. (it is also a primary muscle involved in our stability and balance) .

The Stressed Psoas

The issue when we are dealing with chronic stress or trauma is that our Psoas is often in a constant state of flexion (activation).

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When we have experienced chronic stress or trauma our nervous system is hyper-vigilant. Our brain and our muscles are in a constant state of ready, or even activation, in order to help us survive. Our nervous system does not have a rational way of thinking. It does not know how to differentiate the stress of traffic, cityscapes, or uncomfortable e-mails from a bear that is about to eat us. It only knows how to say “let’s get out of here!!” or “it’s oooookay to chill out….” Both of which occurs at an unconscious level in a fraction of a second.

Trauma research shows us that our physiology is impacted just as much as (if not more than) our psychology through stress and adverse experiences.

How do you know if you may have a tight Psoas?

• Do you sit more hours in a day then you spend moving around?

• Have you ever experienced stressful events in life (be them extreme events such as the loss of a loved one or a car accident or seemingly less significant like the loss of a friendship or a fight with a spouse?)

• Do you often have lower back pain?

• Do you often find yourself feeling anxious, agitated, or frustrated?

If you have answered yes to any of the questions above there is a potential that you have a tight Psoas. This muscle can be impacted by any of these events. It can also impact our mood and emotional wellbeing due to the neural firings that occur when our Psoas is tight.

So what does it matter?

So why am I talking about the Psoas and how it is impacted by trauma?

Well… our Psoas muscle can serve as a litmus test for the rest of our body. When our Psoas is in a state of relaxation and rest- typically so is the rest of our body. And when our Psoas is tight and flexed- so is the rest of our body! This can produce an excess of cortisol and adrenal in our system which can lead to a myriad of stress-related health disorders including adrenal fatigue.

Our Psoas muscle is also correlated with our Diaphragm, which one of our main muscles responsible for breathing (see diagram below). As you can see the Diaphragm and the Psoas connect along the same vertebrae in the lower spine- so when the Psoas is tight we are unable to fully extend our Diaphragm. This means we aren’t able to take a full breath! When we are taking short, shallow breaths as opposed to long, slow breaths our body is in a constant state of Sympathetic Arousal (fight-flight). We cannot have both our Sympathetic and Parasympathetic (rest-digest) systems firing at the same time, and when our Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) is offline than we are unable to properly digest and absorb our food nutrients, our immune system is not going to be functioning at an optimal level, and we will have impaired ability to produce fresh blood cells…among many other general health functions that occur through our PNS.

A tight Psoas muscle can mean that our overall health and wellbeing is impaired.

Photo by magicmine/iStock / Getty Images

What to do about it?

This good news is that we don’t have to be in a chronic state of fight-flight mode! The key is learning to listen to and respond to what our body is telling us. If your Psoas is tight (or if you have lower back pain as a potential symptom of a tight Psoas) here are some things you can do:

• Talk to a mental health counselor. Remember that the mind and the body is a two way street? Perhaps your Psoas is tight because of unconscious stresses in your life. These stressors may be scary or risky to face on your own. Talking to a professional who can help you listen to the language of your body and find out if there are circumstances or relationships you need to adjust in order for your body to be at rest is an invaluable investment!

• Shake: Bear with me on this one- I know it may sound crazy. But one of the most amazing things we can do for our body (and one thing we almost never do) is to shake. Literally. Lay on your back and shake your head, arms, legs, and hips (paying special attention to your psoas). This can release extra energy and tension held in your viscera and nervous system so that your body can achieve a new state of relaxation.

• Rest! After stretching and/or shaking allow yourself to lay on your back with arms by your side (palms up) and legs down with feet hanging open. If that is uncomfortable for your lower back you can bend your knees and put your feet on the floor with your knees together. Close your eyes and simply pay attention to your breath. Don’t have your phone or other distracting devices with you. Maybe play some calming instrumental music, and just be. See if you can slow down and increase your breath by focusing on your belly and chest raising with your inhale. This is giving your body the experience of resting and can help shift you into your Parasympathetic Nervous System.

Thanks for reading!