backbone felt resting into her chair. She relaxed slightly as she allowed her awareness to expand to that area. I asked her to notice the weight of her ribs and spine as she rested back even more. Her flood of tears started to slow down as her pain lessened.
Next, I asked about the sensation of her sitting bones on the chair. As this awareness settled in, she spoke through her tears, “I am all alone without support now that I have struck out on my own. Even my family is upset with me for leaving my great provider of a husband.”
I didn’t know most of the facts regarding her current situation. However, I did know that she had come to my circle with two friends, who were sitting on either side of her. I asked her to allow her awareness to spread out to either side so that she could feel the supportive presence of her friends. As she explored this possibility, her tears slowed to a trickle.
Next, I suggested that she direct her attention to the sensation of her feet resting on the floor and, within the ease of this connection, to simply notice how supportive it felt. Gravity connects us to the earth, without any effort, in every moment of our lives. This resource is available to everyone, although few are conscious of it. This awareness seemed to shift something inside that turned the tide of her grief.
Finally, I asked her how that watermelon-size ball of grief in her midsection was doing. She got very quiet, and her mouth curled into a smile as she reported that it was about the size of an orange and that she was feeling much better. We had dispelled Body Myth 1, and she now had more of herself to compassionately hold her sadness and grief.
Body Myth 2: The Body Is Mysterious and Dangerous
I grew up with Body Myth 2. I was raised in a good Southern Baptist family with lots of wonderful singing, praising of God, and the community life of church potlucks. What was missing was any education about the primal instincts of the lower half of the body — of what could happen if I dropped into the “danger zone” of the scary unknown. I sensed that base emotions of anger and rage lived in these depths, and I didn’t want to venture too far down for fear of them.
Body Myth 2 is fed by fear of the unknown and what it will bring if we venture outside of the comfort zone of our known world. This myth is also fed constantly because of the way our brains are wired. The neural circuits for survival — which look for anything possibly dangerous — fire much faster than the measured, thoughtful circuits that lead us into creative endeavors in new arenas.
To dispel this myth, the key is to slow down and expand our awareness — widen our perceptual lens on the world. Then we won’t automatically decide that what might be a magic wand or a walking cane is always a dangerous snake! This becomes more nuanced as we take a closer look at all the ways the world can harm us and all the ways it can delight us.
Thawing Out the Freezer
I had worked with Janet for a number of months on her fear of relationships with men. What emerged, as she felt safe enough to share, was a particular memory that had haunted her for years.
When she was growing up, she had a beloved uncle who had always been her protector. He was her “listening ear” in a chaotic, alcoholic extended-family home. Unknown to her at the time, he still lived in their home because of his lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder and drug addiction.
One night, at age thirteen, Janet came home excited to share that she had gotten a big role in the school play. She rushed into her uncle’s semidarkened room and gently shook his shoulder to wake him. He startled from his drug-induced stupor. Raging like a bull, he started to throttle her. The long seconds it took for him to recognize her and remove his hands from her throat seemed like an eternity. For her, it was a dreadful nightmare.
When the uncle finally let go, Janet fled from his room in shock and cried herself to sleep. Typical of many victims of violence, she took on the blame. Feeling ashamed, she hid the bruises that emerged on her neck with scarves and turtleneck sweaters so no one would know. Not only was she physically traumatized; she had lost her best friend.
Janet’s sweet, quiet uncle became a monster in her eyes. She was not sure how it had happened, but she believed that somehow it was her fault. Perhaps it was her joy and exuberance that had ignited the rage deep within him. Perhaps she was responsible for this mysterious, life-threatening violence.
When her uncle awakened the next morning, he had no conscious memory of the incident. His addiction deepened in the weeks that followed. Soon after, he committed suicide, magnifying Janet’s trauma, guilt, and shame. She walked around in a fog feeling like a zombie.
It was years before she could look fully at a man she cared about. If she was in a darkened room or a car at night with a man, her belly would grip in fear and her heart would pound, causing a panic attack. She was sure that something about her might cause men to turn into raging beasts. She withdrew further and further into herself.
As an adult, Janet finally went to psychotherapy and got the courage to ask remaining family members about her uncle. She discovered the truth about his lifelong struggles. This lessened her panic attacks, but she could not shake her deep mistrust of men and the sense that something about her might elicit a mysterious, dangerous rage from their depths.
CranioSacral Therapy and Dialogue
Body Myth 2 was alive and well in Janet’s psyche and her nervous system. To dispel this myth, I sat with her and suggested that she needed a strong ally to meet this powerful fear. I asked her what would help her to feel more present with her thirteen-year-old self, who had made such an isolating decision to withdraw and protect herself.
She intuitively felt that, since this trauma was physically induced, she needed to be physically touched for this trauma to resolve. She also realized that she needed her wise adult self — the part of her that had done years of therapy — to be available to support her traumatized self. She was shaky but resolved as we began her session on my treatment table using my primary mode of hands-on healing, CranioSacral Therapy.
I gently let one of my hands hold the top of her chest while the other held her upper back, cradling her heart, as she recalled that night, first running up the stairs to share her joy with her uncle. I felt a trembling from her lower limbs that slowly dissipated.1 Then I began to feel her chest tighten and get still and cold as she got closer to the actual traumatic moment. I let her know in a gentle voice that I was with her, as an ally, and that the grown-up part of her, who had uncovered the truth about her uncle, was also with us.
Janet’s inner thirteen-year-old remained frozen and mute. Her chest continued to feel tight and cold. I let her know that I would patiently wait with her, as long as it took, for her to feel warmth there again.2 I also reminded her that her cellular intelligence knew what to do and that she could let things unfold in her own time. Something shifted under my hands ever so slightly when I spoke. My words and presence conveyed to her that I saw her clearly, I was not pushing her, and I had no agenda about how this might unfold.
As I felt a deep stirring in her system, I explained that her frozenness was a natural nervous system response to such danger and that it had been her only possible defense at the time of her trauma. The numbness had helped her to survive such an overwhelming event. We explored whether she might want to thank it for its years of valiant service. I felt more stirring under my hands in response to those words.
Out of the Deep Freeze and into the Light of Awareness
It is often a surprising but welcome idea that we can have gratitude for a part of ourselves that was helpful in the past but is hindering our forward progress in the present moment.
Janet’s chest softened significantly in the minutes that followed. This disowned part of herself, which had contributed to her panic attacks and mistrust of men, was finally feeling recognized for its original job of saving her from the overwhelming confusion, fear, and pain of the tragic experience with her uncle. With that recognition, the frozen tightness was able to loosen up a bit, slowly releasing its position as guardian of her safety.
I asked Janet’s older, wiser self to explain to her thirteen-year-old