Password: Week 1 - Courage, Week 2 - Trust, Week 3 - Choice, Week 4 - Dance. Week 5 - Wholeness

Week 4 ~ Container & Rhythm

Group Class - Sunday, December 18th, 2022
Group Class - Integration Day - January 8th, 2023

Practice: Pendulation

Please note - each week, you will get a different element to support the process. While it will take some time to build the support, the challenges may be fully present, so you will need to be especially gentle along the way. If you would like, give this exercise a try. If it feels ok enough to you, you can work with it as often as you’d like. Once you get familiar with it, this is an especially good practice to bring into daily life.

Journaling - Notice for counter vortex. Counter vortex is something that feels good, better, important, or like an antidote. When it arises, it can feel like magic. It is often unexplainable or unexpected. It can feel like getting a glimpse of something new or something that is deeply needed. Have awareness to catch the arising of counter vortex. Journal about counter vortex experiences. They may feel more subtle or less dramatic than trauma vortex. Journaling can help highlight them and let your system recognize them even more.

If you would like to explore the follow-up for this topic, scroll down to read or listen.
This info is provided as support. Explore only as much as feels good to you. Take it slowly.

You can read the information below or listen to this audio recording.

Capacity

In the first three weeks, we practiced using present moment choice and resource to facilitate settling and to begin expanding the container. In the space of a larger container, there is room for things to be seen in different ways and room for energy to move, reorganize, and integrate.

This group is meant as a container and catalyst. As we create this space and support, the contents of your life will start to move and reorganize. Your next steps of healing will start to reveal themselves. This could be from what arises internally or from situations that arise externally. It will also include awareness of what sorts of support you need. For each person, the path that arises will be different. These tools can help you bring stability, gentleness, and understanding to the healing journey.

I had a teacher who used the phrase Fractal Reorganization: If we open up space and have the experience of support in the present moment, elements rearrange to a higher level of organization. This happens naturally and in a way that has greater wisdom than what we could design through the mind. This goes with the idea I presented in the first week on Initiation: trauma integrated leads to greater capacity. This fractal reorganization is also why we don't have to work on every bit of content and how, by working on one piece, everything will be touched. The focus is on support. And on trust that, if you work gently with the piece that is here, the whole healing is happening.

Rhythm

As the container is established and space and support are present, a natural rhythm begins. Pendulation between the Counter Votex (experiences arising in the present moment that feel better, different, or like antidote) and Trauma Vortex (inner experiences that don't feel good, or relate to the elements that want to heal). This pendulation happens naturally, however, we may need to support it to happen if we are stuck in one vortex. Or–if the pendulation is happening in a way that feels too big and destabilizing–we may need to support it to slow down and happen in a way that is gentle enough to feel ok.

It may be relieving to know that pendulation is a natural part of healing. Just like the rhythms of the universe, contraction follows expansion. The system is riding a wave towards balance and aliveness.

We might feel the counter vortex (that which feels good/healing, neutral, more ok, or like a little relief or hope) and then we will be drawn to address the place that is needing care. This concept helps us ride the wave of it all. Helping it become more gentle, adding choice, and letting us use gentle waves to sail to where we intuitively know we want to go. Whether in therapy or in life, the trauma vortex coming up is not necessarily a bad thing. It may mean that we are ready for a next layer of healing.

When our system is overwhelmed or unsupported, there can be a tendency to contract around a problem, obsess on it, or be stuck there. Or, there can be a tendency to float away, ignore it, be “fine” and just go to “business as usual”. Some people will go back and forth between these states. In any case, the experience is of the problems being unchanging. Our next step in these tools is to begin using counter vortex (any goodness, okayness or antidote that is here) to make room where it is possible to start working with the healing that wants to happen in a gentle way. The goal is not only to calm yourself down - and for some people, to do only that would be a repetition of trauma. Rather, as we support our system towards stabilization and settling, we open up space in which we can actually begin to be with what is there. Listen to it and begin to understand what is there and what it needs.

Exploring the Vortexes Through Art

It can be interesting to explore the vortexes through art. Using art of any kind - visual art and also poetry, dancing, music, etc - is a form of titration. As we allow a representation of what we are observing to come forward, it creates a little space from it. This little bit of distance allows us to come into relationship with it rather than being consumed by it or just thinking that it is the entirety of who we are.

If you would like to explore the vortexes through art, you can do this in any way you’d like. You could make a representation of the trauma vortex that is here now and then one for the counter vortex that comes forward. Or you can use this recorded process if you would like. Have 2 blank pieces of paper and colors to draw and scribble with. You can pause along the way to have more time.

The examples shared here can help you become more able to explore the detail of vortexes with curiosity. Your expression and words will be different. It is interesting to come into exploration of experiences that we may have labeled as a single word for a long time. It brings us into a place of listening and truly wanting to know what it there. To “get to know about it,” meet it, come into experiential conversation with it. For example, you may feel Depression. When it came in the past, there may have been no room for curiosity. You may have collapsed into it in familiarity, or thought it was just a chemical state that didn’t have anything to tell you. You may also been afraid of it, and that makes it hard to be curious. As you come into observation and exploration of what it is like, the experience may become less scary and overwhelming. There may also be wisdom unfolding within it that we can support when there is less fear.

Choice & Memory Files

At this point in the journey, it is even more important to bring in restoration of choice and agency. Often, we are unaware of how many choices we have in a given moment because choice has been restricted in the past. When not in a somatic paradigm, even psychology can censor choice and agency. People may take our choices personally, make meaning of our choices, and judge us for them. Also, we have likely internalized lack of choice so, even if it would be welcome, we may assume we are restrained, or fear may still come up. Lack of choice can be connected with a lot of anxiety. Our system may have learned to restrain or explode these energies that would want to move us freely - away from what we don’t want, towards what we want. And also, lack of choice restricts our ability to be resourced. In trauma, options often become very black and white. Welcoming, practicing, and having permission to navigate the nuances of choice is a big part of healing.

It is important to bring this in at this point in the journey because somatic healing happens experientially in present moment time. It does not totally happen within the comfort of intellectual exploration. Rather, what is wanting to heal comes up in 3D. The most fundamental elements of trauma that effect us are not the cognitive understandings but the implicit memories - free floating, experiential/body memories. When they come up in the present moment, they may feel like they are about what is happening right now. But they may not be only about here and now. They may be an opening of a memory file from the past. Its a file because usually these are not just one memory, but many in the same category. This means that there is always a trigger for healing. The trigger may come from something that happens in the environment or by evoking it by asking “tell me a bit about what you want to work on.” In either case, the memory file is opened.

Just like a file folder or a computer file, the only way to edit it is by having it open. So, now - in present moment resource and relative safety, in a space of more capacity, the inner witness, and choice – there is a chance to navigate the memory in a different way and have a different experience. This is why the repair must always be present in the process of healing of trauma. That is to say, the way we are doing things IS healing of this file. For example, if the trauma was about something we had to do alone, it might be really important to bring in support. If the trauma was about something that happened too fast, we will have to consciously support ourselves to slow down. If there was a boundary violation, we will need to know that we get to have boundaries in the process of healing. There are often many layers being healed at once.

The Vortexes

As we deepen the practice of subtle noticing and resource, we can begin using this space to work with that which is wanting to heal. We may want to work with a stress response due to circumstance right now, or older traumas and resulting emotions, behaviors, or physical conditions that we are wanting to soothe and heal. Often, present moment stresses are a portal to past traumas and implicit memory states that are wanting to heal. Present moment circumstances may have opened a memory file from the past.

The word vortex is an image referencing actual dynamics that can be observed in water. It is also a helpful word because vortexes have an energy of their own. And, like a vortex, they have the potential to suck you in. The trauma vortex can be most simply described as “the feeling that you want to heal.” You can imagine it as energies and experiences of difficult moments in the past still swirling. It is like the part of you that is still there in the past, stuck in time, feeling like it is happening right now. In terms of what is happening in the brain and memory systems, this is pretty accurate - the brain carries the memory in present moment time - it has not been fully placed in the past. When triggered, this trauma vortex comes up - the felt-sense memories, images, physiological responses and all the behaviors associated. However, the counter vortex comes as well - the sense of healing, antidote, new response, a part of you that is more ok even within the difficulty. And perhaps even the emergence of something that feels good.

These vortexes are part of analogy of the "Stream of Life." Trauma breaks the boundary of the river bank - the water then flows out and swirls around (trauma vortex) however a counter current within the river can also be seen. You'll see this explained in the video below.

Trauma Vortex - the sensations, emotions, memories, images, thoughts that do not feel good or that feel like an element of the trauma that needs to heal.

In this diagram, the lightening bolt (trauma) overwhelms the system, breaking our boundary (physically, emotionally, energetically) - as the water leaves the river bank where it was broken, the water starts to spin. Part of us may get stuck here.

Counter Vortex or Healing Vortex - In the video below, you will see that this actually happens in water dynamics. A counter spiral forms. You could take this to represent that there are also currents of healing and okayness even when there are currents of trauma. Antidote emerges. Unexpected pockets of reprieve. However, you could also take it to represent that new good can come from loss - not from a mental forcing, but as a natural course of things.

Lightning Bolt

This lightning bolt is the initiation we talked about in week one. It starts The Hero’s Journey. A lightening bolt of initiation breaks a closed circle and turns it into a spiral. Yes, it disrupts the flow of the stream of life and that flow forward through time must be recovered. However, it may also stir things that need to be stirred, disrupt things that need to be disrupted, bring to the surface something that needs to be seen. And then, in the pendulation, an alchemy begins. Sometimes, a major trauma revels underlying trauma, giving them an opportunity to heal.

If it feels good to you, you can hold both of these ideas at once: the pain of the trauma must be healed and the wounding must be stopped AND also, the trauma may have opened you to seeing something that you didn’t see before. It may be the opening to healing other older traumas and becoming more fully alive.

When trauma starts to heal, it feels like the river of time begins to flow forward again. It is such a relief. Healing trauma can feel like time mores forward, rather than the experience of being stuck in the trauma that can feel like being stuck in time. The mind may have an intellectual understanding that the trauma is in the past and that we made it. Or there may not even be a mental sense of safety if current events and situations are a continuation of the trauma. However, whether the mind knows or not that the trauma is in the past, it is a powerful experience when the body starts to feel that sense of “I have made it.”

Here is a beautiful video from Peter Levine where he talked about the stream of life. In it he describes how his words “trauma vortex” and “counter vortex” come from watching the dynamics of water. He references ancient spiritual and healing practices that also involve this infinity sign - where we touch the edge of the trauma vortex and then the edge of the counter vortex. The holding of both leading to the healing of the trauma vortex, the integration of the counter vortex and the emergence of something totally new. If you have time, please take the time to watch.

—

Pendulation

Think of the figure eight or infinity sign. There is a gentle circling back and forth. In trauma healing, think of a figure eight that can come more close to the center and also can expand. One side of the infinity symbol is trauma vortex and the other side is counter vortex. We circle around the edge of one and then around the edge of the other. Taking just a slice of it. As we do so, each change. They may increase, decrease, or reveal something else. Over time, with each loop around the trauma vortex, as survival energy is discharged, it may be ok to go the tiniest bit closer to the center of the trauma.

This slice by slice, titrated way is important to understand because there may be fear of feeling the full force of the trauma. A Slinky is sometimes used to illustrate this. In a dangerous moment, big survival energy comes up and the Slinky is stretched out and then slammed shut, binning the survival energy into the system. In doing trauma work, you unwind one loop of one side of the Slinky and then titrate that survival energy. Then, do the same from the other side. This is done one loop at a time over a period of time, letting the system stabilize within each tiny bit more space. By the time you reach the center of the Slinky, almost all the survival energy has been titrated out and capacity has expanded. In this way, by the time you reach what would have been the most intense elements of the memory, most of the intensity has already been discharged and resource has increased.

Pendulation helps slowly discharge survival energy and it also helps expand the container. We build capacity through this gentle dance. The healing this brings is a process of transformation and alchemy that is found in many cultures. It transforms the elements involved and also expanded our container and our knowing of self in a positive way. It shifts the Self-to-Trauma Ratio. The fish has more room to swim. And the ability to move and have freedom and choice–this is counter vortex as well.

Yes, and

When you look for the counter vortex (sometimes called the healing vortex), it may not be something dramatically good. Often, people don’t believe that they can find the counter vortex because they are looking for something too big or thinking that it would result in the trauma vortex being entirely gone. Sometimes, we do get these sort of glimpse - we may get a thought of image of the truth of who we are, or moments where we feel great and where symptoms are gone. These can be very helpful along the way. AND, it is also important to know that the biggest change happens through the tiniest shifts.

Counter vortex may be something more neutral, more ok, or even just “less bad.” It may come as a wave of feeling just slightly better and then you might be able to notice the particulars of that “better” and explore it as counter vortex. Also, counter vortex may come as anger or as the ability to cry. You don’t even need to make sense of it. It is just something that feels good. For example, if everything feels bad, counter vortex can come in the form of simply getting to say that “everything feels bad,” rather than having to pretend.

Counter vortex give us ground to stand on. If there is a lot of pain, discomfort, or fear in the body, you may need to find counter vortex outside of the body. By looking at something, or feeling into the space around you. You may then be able to look for places in the body that feel a little bit less bad or more neutral. It is always important to know that this is a “yes, and.” That is to say - we are not denying the magnitude and importance of the pain, but looking for something that is also there that you may not have been aware of. It may be 99% trauma vortex and just 1% counter vortex. That is totally ok and very understandable.

Remember the image of tracking - we follow the deer prints for a while, and then the bunny prints, then the squirrel. They are all there at once, but its just that we are following particular ones. Similarly, there are many things happening at once in our experience. But we have familiar habits of focus where some things are less apparent to us – this might be elements of our pain AND elements of our strength and healing. You likely notice pendulation happening naturally. For example, you may be noticing the counter vortex and then “all of the sudden” the trauma vortex starts to come in. Sometimes, people begin to notice it and think something is going wrong. But this is the natural flow of healing. It may actually mean that enough strength is there to be with it. And then we can use these tools to work with it more gently and with more of a sense of control. Getting to see it a little bit deeper.

Noticing in More Detail

When you do the recorded exercise, a slow pendulation will be explored. You will also notice that, within that, smaller pendulations will happen - you'll find yourself noticing something pleasant, and then something difficult might come forward, then something unexpectedly pleasant comes or a wave of relief. Notice these micromovements. This is your body already going in the direction of healing and you can just start to feel in more detail and possibly with less fear. These pendulations may also expand the container. Next, you'll be able to notice both the trauma vortex and healing vortex in more detail. If either feel like too much, look at them from a distance.

Restoring preference and choice are a big part of trauma healing. Remember, the repair must be present in the process of healing. Often, experiences of trauma involve not having a choice. Developmental trauma may involve not even getting to have a preference. It may be interesting to notice that — if you stay on the edges of the vortexes, some capacity for choice might come in. Choice to go towards the trauma vortex or choice to go towards counter vortex, resource, or orienting. This can be a powerful experience, and a counter vortex in and of itself, especially if you have experienced not having choice concerning the trauma vortex.

Also, it is important to know that trauma vortex and counter vortex are a matter of preference. We have many different trauma vortexes and many different counter vortexes. Especially as time is a river, they will be different each time we notice and also what it is like for us to experience them will be different on any given day. It is important to know that trauma vortex and counter vortex are a matter of preference. We are not just sorting things into “good” and “bad.” For example, on one instance, anger may feel like trauma vortex. And, on another instance, anger may feel like counter vortex. Sometimes, we might choose to explore the thing that has been less experienced: if we have been in the anger a lot, the counter vortex may be to allow the sadness (or vice versa). And sometimes it is just about noticing what feels good to go towards right now and what it is that feels good about it.

Remember the concept of discharge - tears, shaking, temperature changes. When you are exploring the trauma vortex, if there is some safety and support present, you might notice survival energy starting to discharge & leave. If you notice this, see if you can notice resource and allow the discharge to happen.

Concepts:

Resource - anything that feels good, supportive, helpful. OR, if those are not available, anything that feels more neutral or less difficult.

External Orienting - can involve looking around, listening, smelling and touching. It can be a helpful way to bring in the present moment while exploring things that may be body memories from the past. It also allows for present moment assessment of relative safety and the finding of resource.

Container - the space we work in. As it pertains to this, the space of self and capacity that we have to work in. This is a bit abstract. Remember the metaphor of the brick in the small fish tank versus the large fish tank. It relates to the "self to trauma" ratio.

Trauma Vortex - the aspects of sensations, images, thoughts, emotions, behaviors or impulses that do not feel good, are overwhelming or disorganizing, or are part of the patterns resulting from trauma. Think of the states that come up that do not feel good. Examples: physical pain, a state of confusion, a feeling of worthlessness, a feeling of powerlessness, anger that does not feel good, despair, a sinking sensation, quickened thoughts, too tired to get up, or can’t stop working. There may be familiar themes, but will NOT necessarily be the same day to day.

Counter Vortex - the aspects of sensations, images, thoughts, emotions, behaviors or impulses that feel good, pleasant, or better. These may overlap with aspects of the trauma vortex. For example, a feeling of anger might be present in both. These may be familiar, but will NOT necessarily be the same day to day.

Pendulation - movement between counter vortex and trauma vortex and also the ability to hold both at the same time. Once the counter vortex is large enough, this pendulation will naturally occur. However, even once the counter vortex is there, we may have to remember check in with each, as the habitual patterns of noticing may go towards one or the other.

This recording is at the top of this page. It can be done seated or laying down and is a gentle exploration of the vortexes.

Optional additional homework….

You’ve seen some art and poetry throughout this page. In a future group, we may use drawing to express the trauma vortex and/or the counter vortex. This may be something that you would like to bring into your life in general. If we draw or write poetry of the trauma vortex, it can help create a little distance as well as make it familiar. If we draw the counter vortex, it can help us learn about it and integrate it.

Remember - vortexes are not a singular thing. On any given day, you may be working with a different trauma vortex or counter vortex. However, you will start to notice different themes. They may fall into similar categories. Whatever processes you use - describing, drawing, moving, etc - use them to increase detailed understanding and also to get some distance so that you can come into relationship with what you are working on.