Category Archives: gratitude

NO HOSTAGES BEYOND THIS POINT: Teaching Magical Viewpoints to female sex offenders

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A sign on the main entrance gate to the Hilltop Unit, part of the Gatesville, Texas, prison complex, says “NO HOSTAGES BEYOND THIS POINT”.

It appears twice, on each side of the gate, so visitors see this message as they enter and as they leave.

These signs provide a strong clue that you’re entering a different world at Hilltop, and that you will leave it changed.

Ann, the social worker who runs the Sex Offenders Treatment Program (SOTP) for women, escorted my friend Peggy Lamb and me to the dorm where the women in the program live. Peggy is a facilitator for Truth Be Told, a nonprofit working with women behind and beyond bars. She teaches movement and also brings in presenters for Truth Be Told’s Exploring Creativity workshops at the Hilltop Unit.

I was there at her invitation to teach an Exploring Creativity class called Magical Viewpoints, a basic skill in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) where it is also called “triple description”.

Ann led us through the dorm. I’ve visited prisons several times over the past 10 years for Truth Be Told events and graduations. This was the first time I’ve seen the inmates’ living quarters. It’s about as basic as you can get at Hilltop. In one big room, each inmate has a space about 6×4 feet in which there is a single bed (looked like 3-4 inches of mattress on a wooden platform), a storage locker under the bed, and perhaps a small table and chair. These “cells” are separated by wooden partitions about 3.5 feet high, so there is very little privacy. Everything looks old and is painted white. There is no decor. There is no air conditioning either.

We walked to the common area behind the sleeping quarters where the women were waiting for us. The inmates wear white uniforms and choose from a couple of styles of standard-issue shoes (sneakers or short boots). Those who wear eyeglasses wear a plain no-nonsense unisex style that harkens back to the men’s eyewear of the 1950s. No one is wearing makeup. Hairdos are plain and simple.

This room had murals and posters on the white walls, which I was told is not so in other units at Hilltop. A humongous fan was blowing, making a loud racket, along with a couple of smaller fans. We turned that big fan off and used an old, temperamental PA system to make ourselves heard.

Peggy introduced me, and it was obvious that these women love Peggy. (I’m feeling very pleased that I brought Peggy into Truth Be Told. That worked out well. She has made the most of it.)

I taught the women about using first, second, and third position to understand an event from their own eyes and through another’s eyes and to view it as a camera would. First they remembered looking at a piece of art they had created in the previous Exploring Creativity class taught by Peg Runnels, seeing it through their own eyes. Then they remembered seeing another artist creating their art and making those same movements. Finally, they imagined seeing the art, with the artist putting the finishing touches on it, and seeing themselves viewing it.

I did a demo using these three viewpoints on a conflict situation with a wonderful volunteer, Carla, and then I led them as a group through the process, watching them step into imaginary circles for each position. I watched very carefully, and it appeared to me that each woman got it.

Then they journaled about the experience, made art about it, and a few of them shared their art and their experience of doing the exercise. Their homework was to do it with a different event in mind and journal about it for Peggy. Their six opportunities to learn and deepen this skill will serve them well, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

I asked them for their feedback on the three magical viewpoints. Which one gave them the most new information? It surprised me that second position was so powerful for them. I had expected that third position would be the real revelation (the cool sense of detachment often is), but Ann told me that a major goal of the SOTP is learning empathy for the victims of their crimes, and so learning about and experiencing second position strengthened that goal.

Then our time was up. They honored Peggy by giving her a sweet, gigantic homemade card on which each woman had written a personal thank you to her for volunteering with them.

I’ve heard many women tell their stories at TBT graduations over the past decade. Chaos is in every story. Prison provides the security to examine their lives, something many have never done or even been exposed to before getting involved with Truth Be Told’s programs.

That’s the first step toward true rehabilitation. Then there’s the support and learning and accomplishment they get through connection with Truth Be Told.

I’m feeling very lucky and grateful to have had the good fortune to connect with Truth Be Told when it was an infant nonprofit, to have helped nurture it into stability, to step back when life had other plans for me, and to reconnect via teaching a useful life skill.

I want to thank Keith Fail, NLP trainer at NLP Resources Austin, for his support. He and I (mostly he) taught Magical Viewpoints at the Lockhart prison in the fall of 2011. He was training people in Europe when this teaching opportunity came up. I winged it as well as prepped myself, learned a lot, and had a blast!

Immobilization/shutdown/dissociation/frozen, a trauma response built into the nervous system

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Back in March 2012, I posted that I had started reading Peter A. Levine’s latest book, In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. My post included excerpts from Levine’s description of being hit by a car and his experience afterwards.

His experience serves as a useful model for being and staying present through trauma and recovery. He knew how to allow his body and emotions to process naturally so that he did not get stuck in a traumatic state (i.e., PTSD).

Well, I am still reading that book. It’s very, very rich. Some parts are rather scientific. I’m taking my time to really understand it.

Levine uses polyvagal theory (I just posted an interview with Stephen Porges, who came up with the theory) to explain the states that people experience and can get stuck in from traumatic experiences.

Because Somatic Experiencing Practitioners and other therapists (as well as astute loved ones) who are helping someone recovery from trauma need to know which layer of the nervous system is dominant at any given time in a traumatized individual, I am going to describe them.

First, the primary job of our nervous system is to protect us. We have senses that alert us to danger. We may react to a perception of a threat in our bodies before it ever becomes conscious in the mind. That’s because the autonomic nervous system (which is not under our control) is involved when trauma occurs. We react instinctually.

This is good to know. It means that your trauma reactions are automatic, not something you can control, so there’s no need to feel shame or blame yourself. You were doing the best you could.

There are two defensive states that occur when encountering trauma: immobility/dissociation/shutdown (freeze) and sympathetic hyperarousal (fight or flight).

I’m going to write about them in separate posts to avoid being too lengthy.

The more primitive nervous system state is immobility. (Primitive in that evolutionarily it comes from jawless and cartilaginous fish and precedes sympathetic hyperarousal.)

It is triggered when a person perceives that death is imminent, from an external or internal threat.

Levine also uses the terms dissociation, shutdown, and freeze/frozen to describe this state. Note: If you’re an NLPer, dissociation means the separation of components of subjective experience from one another, such as cutting off the emotional component of a memory and simply remembering the visual and/or auditory components. (Source: Encyclopedia of NLP)

Keep in mind that Levine is talking about dissociation as an involuntary post-traumatic physiological state that trauma victims can sometimes get stuck with. There may be some overlap. According to Levine, symptoms of being in this state include frequent spaciness, unreality, depersonalization, and/or various somatic and health complaints, including gastrointestinal problems, migraines, some forms of asthma, persistent pain, chronic fatigue, and general disengagement from life.

Levine notes:

This last-ditch immobilization system is meant to function acutely and only for brief periods. When chronically activated, humans become trapped in the gray limbo of nonexistence, where one is neither really living nor actually dying. The therapist’s first job in reaching such shut down clients is to help them mobilize their energy: to help them, first, to become aware of their physiological paralysis and shutdown in a way that normalizes it, and to shift toward (sympathetic) mobilization. 

The more primitive the operative system, the more power it has to take over the overall function of the organism. It does this by inhibiting the more recent and more refined neurological subsystems, effectively preventing them from functioning. In particular, the immobilization system all but completely suppresses the social engagement/attachment system.

Highly traumatized and chronically neglected or abused individuals are dominated by the immobilization/shutdown system.

Signs that someone is operating from this state include:

  • constricted pupils
  • fixed or spaced-out eyes
  • collapsed posture (slumped forward)
  • markedly reduced breathing
  • abrupt slowing and feebleness of the heart rate
  • skin color that is a pasty, sickly white or even gray in color

Brainwise, volunteers in the immobility state exhibited a decrease in activity of the insula and the cingulate cortex. In one study, about 30% of PTSD sufferers experienced immobility and 70% experienced hyperarousal, with a dramatic increase of activity in these brain areas. Most traumatized people exhibit some symptoms from both nervous systems, Levine says.

I feel the deepest compassion for people in this state, because I have experienced it myself: the spaciness, depersonalization, sense of unreality, and passive, disengaged attitude toward life. It was many years ago. If I could, I would reach back in time to that injured woman and give her resources she just didn’t have back then.

I feel so grateful for the trauma recovery work I’ve done, both with a therapist and on my own. I haven’t experienced immobilization for years, except briefly.

Next up: sympathetic hyperarousal/fight or flight.

The Anti-DSM: A compendium of healthy states!

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The DSM-IV is the psychiatric profession’s Bible of mental disorders. It’s where experiences like PTSD, borderline personality disorder, and autism are defined. Doctors diagnose, and insurance companies cover prescriptions for diagnoses, according to the DSM-IV. It’s a very powerful book affecting the lives of millions.

Rob Breszny, astrologer extraordinaire, questions why we don’t have such a list of healthy states. He asked his readers to help him compile a compendium of healthy, exalted, positive states of being.

Here are just a few of the responses:

* ACUTE FLUENCY. Happily immersed in artistic creation or scientific exploration; lost in a trance-like state of inventiveness that’s both blissful and taxing; surrendered to a state of grace in which you’re fully engaged in a productive, compelling, and delightful activity. The joy of this demanding, rewarding state is intensified by a sense that time has been suspended, and is rounder and deeper than usual. (Suggested by H. H. Holiday, who reports that extensive studies in this state have been done by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.)

* AESTHETIC BLISS. Vividly experiencing the colors, textures, tones, scents, and rhythms of the world around you, creating a symbiotic intimacy that dissolves the psychological barriers between you and what you observe. (Suggested by Jeanne Grossetti.)

* AGGRESSIVE SENSITIVITY. Animated by a strong determination to be receptive and empathetic.

* ALIGNMENT WITH THE INFINITY OF THE MOMENT. Reveling in the liberating realization that we are all exactly where we need to be at all times, even if some of us are temporarily in the midst of trial or tribulation, and that human evolution is proceeding exactly as it should, even if we can’t see the big picture of the puzzle that would clarify how all the pieces fit together perfectly. (Suggested by Meredith Jones.)

* AUTONOMOUS NURTURING. Not waiting for someone to give you what you can give yourself. (Suggested by Shannen Davis.)

* BASKING IN ELDER WISDOM. A state of expansive ripeness achieved through listening to the stories of elders. (Suggested by Annabelle Aavard.)

* BIBLIOBLISS. Transported into states of transcendent pleasure while immersed in reading a favorite book. (Suggested by Catherine Kaikowska.)

To read and be inspired by more of these healthy and delicious possibilities, click this link! This is an excerpt from Rob’s book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, well worth reading if you’d relish subverting the dominant paradigm and confirming more of what’s good and possible in life.

Making a difference: An invitation to try Kiva and get $25 to lend

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I’ve been making microfinance loans for several years now through Kiva. It gives me an amazingly good feeling to lend $25 along with a bunch of other people from around the world to help someone struggling in poverty get ahead and to receive updates on their repayment status.

I could be in their shoes. After all, isn’t every person just another version of me?

I’ve made 15 loans so far, to people in Benin, Ecuador, several in Peru, Kenya, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The one to Pakistan took a long time to repay, and I could infer from reading the news why. That country was in quite a bit of turmoil right after I made that loan.

I’ve lent to individuals and groups, men and women of various ages. One was to a Costa Rican mother of four and grandmother, very stylish, who is a talented seamstress and dressmaker. Maria also teaches sewing classes. Her loan, now repaid, was for a better sewing machine for making alterations. Here’s her photo. Doesn’t she look competent?

I am discerning about the reason they want a loan. I’d rather lend money to someone who is creating something or offering a skilled service than if they are reselling Pepsi. Who needs Pepsi?

Several of my loan recipients have done embroidering, weaving, sewing, and tailoring — which require real skills. Others have been in food and agriculture — food stalls, dairy, livestock, fruits and vegetables.

Aside: I wish Kiva would identify the people who are raising livestock, dairy animals, and crops organically. I’d like to encourage that kind of agriculture. That food might end up on my table someday, or yours. Wouldn’t you  prefer organic? Couldn’t the whole world return to growing our food organically?

When loans are repaid, I relend the money. You can also take it out of Kiva if you want. I usually give Kiva a little extra for their operating expenses. That part is tax-deductible as a charitable donation.

Anyway, this is by way of inviting you to make a loan through Kiva. Right now, if any friend of mine joins Kiva for the first time, we both get $25 to  lend. 

All you have to do is click this link to go to my personal invitation page. Find a borrower you like, click “Lend $25,” and follow the instructions from there.

I just used my free $25 to lend Zilola in Spitamen, Tajikistan, some of the $600 needed for her to buy a computer. This mother of three, who works at  a sewing workshop, plans to offer computer services to generate more income for her family. She’s had a little training in business and computer use. Her children will benefit and will help her with this business.

Sounds like a forward-thinking, savvy mom to me.

Actually, the money has been pre-disbursed by a local microfinance operation that works with Kiva as a field partner. The nuts and bolts of microfinance are sophisticated.

IMON International has a four-star risk rating, has partnered with Kiva for over 4 years, and has made over 6,000 microloans totaling $7.5 million in Tajikistan with a default rate of 0.03%.

That seems pretty sound to me.

My loan actually goes to IMON to replace the money they’ve already lent to Zilola. I will get updates on Zilola’s repayment. (Note: The recipient I originally chose, Hout, worked with a Kiva field partner that did not meet Kiva’s standard for participating in this special offer, so if you read this post twice, I’ve replaced Hout’s info with Zilola’s.)

However the money flows, it is doing good, and I feel more connected to this amazing planet we call home.

I make microfinance loans through Kiva because it makes me feel good to help others. My heart connects to their lives and their dreams of lifting themselves and their children out of poverty, of living fuller, more satisfying lives in their families, communities, and world. I want that too.

Their stories become part of my story.

If you’d like to participate in Kiva and start with a gift of $25 to lend, just click this link.

Altucher on oxytocin and polyvagal theory, with humor

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10 Unusual Ways to Release Oxytocin Into Your Life Altucher Confidential.

I love this guy. He’s so real. I can only wish I was as good a writer as James Altucher.

He tells about being caught shoplifting as a kid, his disgust for going to the bathroom, cortisol, stress, the vagus nerve, a photo of a woman’s tattoo of “Fight or Flight”, and oxytocin.

There’s another photo of a foot with the chemical formula for oxytocin tattooed on it.

Then he lists 10 ways to increase your oxytocin levels.

One of the ways happens to be shooting guns. I don’t think that one would work for me. Loud sudden noises like gunshots make me really jumpy. That’s cortisol, not oxytocin. Maybe that’s a guy thing?

I would replace that one with getting a massage. I notice that with almost everyone, receiving massage decreases their cortisol. I can tell from feeling their energy before and after, gauged by how they move and their voices.

For others, especially those who are accustomed to regular massage, an hour or so of good bodywork vastly increases their oxytocin. They are all soft and mellow and receptive and happy afterwards.

I would also add rocking a sleeping baby, but you might have had to nurse your own baby first to get that feeling.

The rest of Altucher’s recommendations for increasing oxytocin work. Even using Facebook! And I especially like his strategy for dating.

I will tell you my pre-date secret. In the brief period when I was single in between separation and re-marriage I had a technique before every date. I would watch either Michael Cera doing comedy or Louis CK doing standup. This would get me laughing, make my oxytocin hormones go on fire, and then I’d go right into the date, with all my sex hormones raging. Plus. I would be temporarily funnier, with a half-life of about two hours. I knew after four hours I would be boring again so the date would have to be over by then. I do this before talks also.

My trauma recovery manifesto: the deepest compassion, the strongest boundary

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I originally posted this earlier this year. Yesterday I received this comment:

Well said! I’m a clergy person with PTSD who can handle almost any trauma while in the collar thanks to good training and very clear boundaries, but when traumatized people insinuate themselves into my personal life, it sends me into a tailspin even after decades of hard therapeutic work. Caring does not involve being receptacles for others’ misery. Setting limits and sending them for the help they need is the very best thing any of us can do.

It inspired me to repost the original. I feel the same way as the commenter: Tell me up front you’re traumatized, and our relationship will be good. I will set the boundaries I need to keep it healthy.

If you fail to disclose your trauma, we’re probably not going to have a healthy, trusting relationship, and when I find out, it could send me back to a place I worked really, really hard to get out of. I don’t take kindly to that. It’s irresponsible and very unfriendly on your part.

Traumatic symptoms have a way of showing up in behaviors beyond your control until you face and heal the trauma, and specialized professional help (Somatic Experiencing and the like) is almost always required. I guessed you had been emotionally abused from your behavior because you were so weird. I just didn’t know the extent of it until I had that clairvoyant experience after seeing you be triggered that sent me into major fight-or-flight mode. The truth will come out.

I empathize with where you are. If you ever want to be a real friend to me, and not an unhealthy co-dependent, I need you to actively work on your recovery and “get on the other side of it”. I know it probably seems harsh, but I know whereof I’m speaking, having been there myself. You getting well is the best thing you can do for yourself and the quality of your future relationships. I wish you well.

~

Occasionally people who have been traumatized have gravitated to me because I’m open about having experienced a serious trauma and (mostly) recovered, but they don’t seem to realize how deeply their past still affects them. They haven’t done any trauma recovery work, and they show up in my life.

I believe they show up because their unconscious is seeking healing. Or perhaps angels bring these people to me so they can see for themselves that recovery is possible. You know, I don’t mind being a role model for recovery from trauma. I’ve come a long way in 10 years. I’ve worked at it.

It’s not like traumatized people wear signs stating that. The sudden discovery that a friend or love interest has been traumatized can create a huge amount of distress for me. Even though in hindsight, their craziness now makes more sense (“oh, of course, that weird behavior was a trauma response”), it can still really be a shock.

So I just want to put this message out there:

If you’ve been traumatized and feel attracted to me because I’m open about having experienced trauma and having done a lot of work on my recovery, first of all, please tell me clearly and up front (or as soon as you realize) that you’ve been traumatized, emotionally abused, get triggered, have flashbacks or nightmares, are shell-shocked, or whatever history or symptoms are affecting you.

There’s no shame in it — you didn’t ask for it. I’d rather know than not, and I just might be able to proceed with appropriate boundaries. I will help you find good help and support you emotionally — in a way that is healthy and not co-dependent.

If that’s what draws you to me, just own it. Do not be asking me out on dates and withholding information about your untreated trauma. That’s creepy. You may naively think you can hide it, but it seriously disregulates your autonomic nervous system, which means it’s beyond your control. Your trauma-related weird behavior will show up in your most intimate relationships sooner or later.

Having untreated trauma is like ignoring an elephant in your living room whose shit is piling up. It will stay there until you see what it’s doing to your life and determine to get it out of your house. Which takes help.

Secondly, if you’re not getting professional help, please do that — get professional help. And let me know that too, because I’m going to worry about you if you don’t, and I’d rather be happy than worried.

Please do not look to me to help you beyond being a cheerleader for your recovery work. I am a blogger who’s open about having experienced trauma and having done a lot of work on recovery. This blog (read About me, and do a search on PTSD or trauma to find related posts) describes some of my recovery experiences. Please feel free to ask me about them or try them yourself.

There is absolutely no need for you to just show me your wounds without any verbal warning. Seeing you suddenly be triggered by your past trauma triggered painful memories of my long struggle of not knowing I had PTSD and finding out, and then spending months processing, healing, and putting my life back together in a new, healthier way.

Your behavior freaked me out badly. It took acupuncture, herbs, and therapeutic assistance to start to get over it (at my expense, I might add, which you have ignored, which also makes me think less of you), and I really don’t trust you now.

Recovery from trauma doesn’t mean being bulletproof. It means being more embodied, emotionally present, and energetically open than before recovery, while still being an ordinary person who cannot read minds. I have more compassion now and am more of a whole person, and I need to set clear boundaries to take care of myself. I do know the difference between friendship and co-dependence.

It breaks my heart more than you can imagine that the innocent gesture I made triggered fear in you. It’s not anything I take casually or lightly. It’s emotionally disturbing to witness someone with their wires crossed, whose body mind mistakes someone who has never emotionally abused them with someone who did.

With help, you can heal your poor damaged nervous system and experience peace and stability and aliveness in your life. I am recommending Somatic Experiencing to people these days.

Please find your way to help. I wish you well.

So this is for everyone: if you know that I have had PTSD and you have had untreated trauma in your life, and you come around seeking a relationship, please tell me up front, do your own recovery work (I’ll be rooting for you), and get yourself in decent emotional and relational shape before you seek friendship or dating from me, for both our sakes.

I look forward to talking with the healthy you.

Glenn Close reads Neruda’s poem “I Like for You to Be Still”

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love how poetry feeds my soul. enjoy this sunday bonus.

Free screening of Meetings with Remarkable Men: a film about Gurdjieff

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My weekly book group, the Austin Redfin Group, just recently up and named itself and decided to host a public event!

We’ve been reading books about “The Work” of G.I. Gurdjieff, a famous Russian mystic and spiritual teacher. Right now we’re reading The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff, by Jeanne de Salzmann, his closest follower, whose notes on his teachings were just published in 2010, even though Gurdjieff died in 1949. I find her writing very clear and accessible.

We’ve also read books by E.J. Gold, author of the American Book of the Dead and many books in the Gurdjieffian Fourth Way tradition.

We’re hosting a viewing of the 1979 film Meetings with Remarkable Men, based on one of Gurdjieff’s books of the same name. The film covers his adventurous search for truth, his initiation into the mysterious Sarmoung Brotherhood, and a demonstration of the movements and sacred dances that later became part of The Work.

Filmed on location in Afghanistan, the movie tells a story of the universal search for the truth and meaning of life and the desire to awaken and realize oneself.

The screening is at Casa de Luz, Serena Room, 1701 Toomey Rd., on Tuesday, July 24, 2012, from 7-9ish pm.

If you are or have been a seeker after truth, you might really enjoy seeing this film. Please consider yourself invited to attend.

“People dance like little kids here!”

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That’s what my 12-year-old granddaughter said about Ecstatic Dance Austin this morning. We arrived during warmup. She sat in a corner and watched. I danced. The space was full.

She sounded surprised and delighted when she made this observation. I had to agree. We do dance like little kids at ecstatic dance. Only we have better rhythm and more grace, and maybe some of us feel a bit more stiffness until we get warmed up. From what I remember, little kids don’t need to warm up.

We definitely have the playfulness, the wholeheartedness, the joy, the abandon, and the presence of little kids when we’re on that dance floor.

We’ve gotten pretty good at connecting with each other and respecting boundaries, completely nonverbally.

We’ve gotten pretty good at keeping the space safe, of moving into the empty spaces instead of colliding. We keep our eyes open.

We’re pretty good at spontaneity and going with the flow.

You could say we dance like nobody’s watching, and that’s because no one is. They’re paying attention to their own dance, dancing with one or more partners, maybe even dancing with the whole room. We’re there to dance, not judge.

I had a blast today, making some sweet connections, and my pulled soleus muscle is working well. I did some jumping and leaping, and it felt strong and capable. It’s just a little stiff. I believe that in another week, the healing will be complete.

Hurray for healing my own injuries!

We also got the good news that the development project that was going to tear down our dance space at the Austin Yoga School on South Lamar has fallen through, and the tenants can stay in their spaces.

That news was very welcome.

And so she danced a dance with me. For one song, we boogied and swung and jumped and played and grinned and laughed and got silly together.

Life is good.

Recovering from adrenal depletion

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I’m in bed, mid-afternoon on a Wednesday, listening to the sound of rain on my metal trailer and the rumble of thunder in the background.

When you live in central Texas, and you get several days of thunderstorms and drenching rains in the middle of July, you count your blessings. Last summer was the worst drought on record. There were cracks in the ground an inch across and as deep as two feet where I live. Those cracks began to reappear after a luscious wet spring turned until a dry summer.

Until this week. The rain sounds and feels like a blessing. Even the hot humidity, in between rains, is welcome. It’s been so long since we’ve had it.

I went out earlier today to meet with a recruiter about a job. Yes, I’m looking for a technical writing/editing contract job. I’ve been heavily recruited for multiple jobs in the past week. I have some financial goals that I’d like to achieve before I’ll be ready to settle into a full-time bodywork and changework practice. Need a newer car, insulation and a deck for my trailer, a much desired trip to Peru in February, and some advanced NLP training next summer. I cannot do all that on massage wages.

I feel a bit incongruent about it. I’d love to just do bodywork and change work full time now (plus more writing), but I’m too broke. So, sigh, hi ho. Even though corporate work takes a toll on my health, I was able to earn and save a nice chunk of change that I’ve been living on since that last job ended nearly two months ago.

I’m still recovering from adrenal depletion (according to my acupuncturist, who told me to take OTC rhodiola and eleuthero) from shocks and stress earlier this year, and I am really feeling it today. Naps are good! Avoiding stress is good. So is really cherishing myself and only hanging out with people who are nurturing and fun to be around and trustworthy.

Laughter is good.

In order to work in the corporate world and stay as healthy as I can, I need to:

  • get a massage twice a week
  • get acupuncture twice a month
  • do yoga daily
  • eat impeccably healthily
  • work from home as much as possible
  • work standing up as much as possible
  • take frequent breaks to move my body
  • dance and shake it out every day
  • meditate

I’m feeling grateful for this downtime in between jobs to start my private massage practice, to experience doors opening (chair massage, anyone? stretching, trigger points? marketing?).

Meanwhile, I’m learning about the mechanics of trauma/chronic stress recovery first hand, and that will be quite useful in my own life and in my healing practice.

Wish me well!