<![CDATA[Lisa J. Newell, Somatic Healing and Trauma Therapy 802-380-0546

<![CDATA[Lisa J. Newell, Somatic Healing and Trauma Therapy 802-380-0546 - Blog]]>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:47:46 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Top 3 Myths of the "Healing" Process: Some Observations Through the Years]]>Mon, 07 Sep 2020 16:43:01 GMThttp://lisanewell.com/blog/top-3-myths-of-healing-process-some-observations-through-the-years

Myth #1: You’re either healed or unhealed.

Nope. Please, especially if you are new to healing or Somatic work of any kind, please stop saying this. I hear this a lot lately in my anti-racism circles and on social media; the healed or unhealed myth. That you’ve either done your work or you haven’t. Nope. Whether it's referencing white people doing the work to investigate their own racism or whether it's anyone doing their healing work of any kind… please stop saying that. It perpetuates harm and shame when we have expectations of ourselves and each other to heal faster. Supremacy culture teaches us to strive for perfection and subscribe to binaries (either/or frameworks), even in our deep personal healing journey. When we think we have “done our work” and then we cause harm again, where does that leave us? With a belief that I must not have just caused harm because I have done my work? Or a cascade of shame because I caused harm even though? It's like the belief that if I am a good person can’t be racist. Or if I have “healed” then I won’t get triggered or defensive anymore. Healing is a process, a spiral, a mountain, a rugged road with detours galore, not a linear experience. It's a lifelong adventure of continually healing and growing and having setbacks and exploring new ways of wrestling with ideas and experiences. Thinking you were “done” with something and then it rears it’s head. And if you know that there is no finish line, after a while you can just chuckle at yourself for thinking there was. What IS true is that we become more resilient, more able to respond to stressful situations with presence and voice and the appropriate ability to confront or leave a situation that is harmful. Including naming when you make a mistake.

Myth #2: Once you’re healed, you’ll be truly happy and free. The end.

Nope. There is no finish line to doing personal healing work or anti-racist work. The end. Haha. But there IS something to say for the ways that when we heal and recover from past traumas and when we have a community of care that we are part of to help us move through current pervasive social traumas, we ARE often able to have access to more joy, pleasure, receptivity, and giving. It’s just a myth that once I get to the finish line I will never have a hard time again. It's a 100% valid desire though, especially when you’ve been suffering for years on end and you really need some relief, like sometimes (especially with physical pain or chronic illness) when I imagine a finish line it actually helps me keep going. That particular strategy is not what I’m speaking to here though. Try not to subscribe to the myth because it’ll keep you seeking something that doesn’t exist and that can bring the belief that “If I am (however many decades) old and I’m still not there then I must be doing it wrong. Aaaand then more shame. Don’t take the bait! The systems of supremacy that mold us are not about supporting us in our healing.

#3: Healing is a beautiful, gentle experience lined with cupcakes and rainbows and in a few sessions/years, you’ll be good.

Nope. It’s hard and painful and confusing and beautiful and mind blowing and exhausting and there are so many rewards and also some setbacks. Messy, raw, joyful, scary, full of unknowns, and vulnerability- just like various kinds of birth. And yes, lots of rewards. This is one of those things that you can understand with your mind but until you get it in your body, it won’t really click. But also YES those cupcakes might start to feel like deep soul-nourishment and you realize those rainbows are actually coming from inside your soul :-)

]]><![CDATA[More Capacity to Feel = Less Fear]]>Mon, 29 Jun 2020 19:19:05 GMThttp://lisanewell.com/blog/more-capacity-to-feel-less-fear

When we talk about “healing”, one of the key things we’re talking about is trying to build our tolerance to feel emotions and sensations without getting overwhelmed by them. While this is an oversimplification, it really often comes down to that. It might seem counterintuitive to feel something that we perceive to be uncomfortable but it is effective. When we get overwhelmed, we often resort to habitual (often destructive and/or unsustainable) ways to cope.

When we are chronically traumatized or overwhelmed, we tend to avoid feeling things because we believe (and have been taught indirectly) that to feel is to die or that if I feel things I will get stuck in the pain/discomfort for an eternity or a number of other beliefs that we subconsciously invest in as a survival tool. These investments usually arise out of our childhood developmental years and therefore we are not fully informed of what our choices are when responding to stressful situations so we do what we think makes the most sense at the time. On the one hand these beliefs make logical sense because at one point we actually really felt that way (in our childhood body/at the time of the trauma/of our ancestors’ traumas) and we often have no experience of anything else… no alternative options… no perception of choice. The belief that we will become consumed (in grief, rage, etc) for an eternity comes from the very real experience of being consumed by big feelings in our little bodies a long time ago, without the skills or support to manage it. In this manner, we learned to disconnect from our body, seeing it as the source of our actual pain and discomfort, and from our feelings, seeing them as threatening. We choose this rather than realize that the pain and hurt coming is from our caregivers, etc. We subconsciously recognize that is the easier path because we are completely dependent for our survival. (Sometimes these beliefs originate in adulthood but it is more uncommon).

From this place, we develop many additional beliefs to help us cope over the years, such as being hard on ourself for having such a hard time and therefore thinking there must be something wrong with us or that we must be unlovable. We do this to try to maintain relationships with our caregivers, no matter how flawed they may be. This dilemma exists in many forms of survival skills used as a way to not be rejected from those we love: family lineage wounds/skills, patriarchal/capitalist/religious conditioning around not trusting our body, being shamed, being taught that to cry is weak, or even for reasons that as adults we would judge as “not a big deal” but to our child body/mind was quite painful. This is part of what keeps these patterns in place- the judgments we put on ourselves for feeling such big things over what we deem as not a big deal. So we never get the chance to move past it. Clearly, many of us aren’t taught how to deal with feelings in a way that allows for self love and receiving love from others. In turn, we do what we have to, to manage the discomfort and often suppress it; addictions of all kinds arise from this place, including codependency, people pleasing, self harm, etc.

Simple and makes sense. But let's look at the systemic/cultural picture.

Unfortunately, because of the dominant systems that we are part of (here in the so-called US at least), we have been taught to not trust our feelings and our body’s wisdom, to only trust our health/healing to the white male doctors that have memorized books in medical school. We have often been separated from the deep wisdom of our healing traditions, by the patriarchical/heterosexual/religious/white supremacist standard. Women, People of Color, and LGBTQ+ people have especially borne the brunt of believing we are “bad” and “wrong” because we have been oppressed and used for hundreds of years to build white male power and wealth, often internalizing/reinforcing our worthlessness. Our bodies have long been used as objects to own, use, and dominate. Despite the harm of 5,000 years of patriarchy, we persist for our rights and our mere presence can be triggering for white, cis-gendered men. Men have been taught, more than anyone else it seems, to not feel and/or suppress all feelings except anger, and it shows up in many ways as violence. There are traumatic roots to this conditioning and there is deep grief as well as profound collective consequences for this. Their rage and jealousy have oppressed us and murdered us. So of course we had to disconnect from our bodies and try to not “feel”! Thankfully, with the proper resources, support, and safety, we are actively making new choices to liberate ourselves and help each other. We can examine how we and our families have internalized those beliefs and can liberate ourselves in our relationships.

What I’m really talking about is the simple (but not easy) practice of learning to feel, little by little, in small doses. We teach our body and mind that feeling can be tolerable or even safe, eventually!. In this way, often the discomfort actually resolves on its own, just by witnessing it and allowing our body to feel it and metabolize it. To use a metaphor, unresolved traumas can be seen as food that doesn’t get fully digested and becomes hardened, causing worsening issues the longer it stays there. By learning to feel in a safe way, it softens and we can metabolize it bit by bit. In this way, the “nutrients” i.e. opportunities for growth, healing, and self awareness, can be absorbed. And what is not useful gets eliminated. In this way, we find out that we feel better when we can feel emotions and sensations and let them be metabolized. This allows for a practice of increasing trust that we won’t die or be consumed for an eternity just for feeling emotions. And this is how we create a new way of being with ourselves. In turn, we can care for each other as we learn to trust our own bodies as wise and not to be feared or hated.

Ultimately, when we have more capacity to feel, we will have less fear of the feelings. When we have less fear of the feelings, we have more choices of how to respond in the face of oppression, threat, and high stress, and therefore have more access to our resilience (the ability to respond and recover). We are learning to feel and know that we will find our way. We start to learn that the more we practice, the more we can trust that feeling our emotions will not destroy us or those we love. Feeling our feelings in the company of people who care about us and finding out that they still love and accept us can be one of the most deeply healing experiences that humans can have. This is one of the keys to recovering from capitalist heteropatriarchy.

]]><![CDATA[Colonialist Greed and Unresolved Trauma Response in the Collective Human Organism]]>Sun, 24 May 2020 20:42:07 GMThttp://lisanewell.com/blog/colonialist-greed-and-unresolved-trauma-response-in-the-collective-human-organism

If we look with a macro lens, can humans be seen as one organism? One body of a collection of cells? Each group of cells having different purpose, shape, response, task, the same way one human body does? Some cells get sick. Some thrive. Some take control. Some forget their purpose. All happening at the same time and driven by a mysterious force keeping it all going.

Sometimes, when I am in a more meditative state and less attached to this earth-based life, I can just allow this to be a neutral, benign truth. Seeing it as just the way it is, with acceptance. But most of the time, it is difficult to remain peaceful about it because tremendous injustice exists among us, primarily at the expense of oppressed peoples.

Humans are not like other animals. Generally, we aren’t just wild out here any more, living and dying close to the earth like the deer and the coyotes who are largely unseen by humans in their struggles and survival. We have big brains with intricate skill sets as well as complex psychological wounds and flaws. To be a sensitive human that cares about other humans’ well-being seems to mean that there is always something to fight or oppose or resist, and by something, I mean Greed. In particular the Colonial, white, patriarchal variety.

From this lens of seeing humans as one organism, are activists the immune system- the cells that identify a threat and work tirelessly to contain and eliminate it? Over time, they may or may not succeed at keeping the organism alive but along the way there are fluctuations in the general health of it. Some wins here, some losses there.

The thing that has fueled all things white supremacy, misogyny, classist, ableist, colonialist, and so on, is greed. Insatiable greed, like cancer, doesn’t give up unless it has good reason to. It has the intention (either consciously or unconsciously) of devouring land and indigenous bodies and women... of using black bodies and the working class to make more and more and more money. Never satiated. It is acting from a place of disregard for balance or for those it is devouring/using. It is acting from an automatic response, a belief that it must do what it is doing because “survival at all costs” is the only goal. As if it is engaged in tunnel vision.

This is sometimes what it's like when unresolved trauma is taking the lead in one’s life; it causes us massive stress and overwhelm and we are unable to fully access our resilience and sometimes our compassion too. We see any harm we cause as necessary or collateral damage. In the case of systemic large scale greed, and the resulting ability to treat groups of people and animals and the planet with such profound disrespect and disregard, it is my belief that there must be a complex level of denial and pain in place. A disconnection from humanity’s pain and also joy. This type of behavior is most often rooted in trauma- perpetual, pervasive trauma. And then through the generations it becomes the perpetrator of cultural trauma.

From this lens, is Greed an unresolved trauma response of the colonizer experience? In very simple terms, an unresolved trauma response is when part of our autonomic nervous system is stuck in a fully engaged response to defend/protect/avoid the pain/discomfort/terror of the past because it has not yet realized that the threat has passed. It is on autopilot, often getting stuck with the “pedal to the metal'' and will not stop until safety is reached. But it doesn’t realize that safety may have already been reached. (Of course safety is relative and subjective). When we are stuck in this state, our ability to see, feel, experience, or comprehend empathy is compromised. In turn, this behavior sees all things as threatening and a means to an end. [Please note that this is a very oversimplified explanation and I could go into great detail about the nervous system as it relates to transgenerational trauma but that is not the primary purpose of this post].

How do activists and healers and organizers help create the possibility of collectively coming out of a trauma response? Of reducing harm and facilitating healing? How can we create collective safety and containment for the illness, trauma, fear, and denial of this colonizer mentality and behavior? Do our individual actions and behaviors really make a difference if there is not system change? Is system change even possible at this point? Has the cancer become out of control? Is it possible to just live with the cancer and have it not take over? What would the death of this organism look like?

]]><![CDATA[Part I: The White Freeze Response as it Relates to Social Inaction]]>Sun, 24 May 2020 20:17:27 GMThttp://lisanewell.com/blog/part-i-the-white-freeze-response-as-it-relates-to-social-inaction

(Parts II and III for Fight and Flight responses are forthcoming)

Many activists wonder why some white people won’t or can’t take action for social change or stand up for other people being treated unjustly. There are myriad reasons for this. One answer (from a body-based perspective) is that this inaction is rooted in the Freeze Response, a.k.a shell shock, death feigning, or immobility. This is the same reason that people struggle with not being able to take action for change in their personal life either.

First, some neurobiology, in simple terms. Let us remember that we are animals with instinctual responses to threats. The Fight and Flight responses (as well as Fawn) are employed first, to try to get away from a threat or defend ourself. The freeze response is employed when the other responses are failing or are thwarted. Freeze is an important resource designed as a short term strategy to either numb us out to get through something life threatening or to numb us out while we die. Our bodies are very intelligent in this way. But the more this happens without being resolved, the deeper the freeze sets in. We can get stuck there when we are faced with the same (perceived) life threatening situation over and over with no resolution and with no end in sight i.e. ongoing domestic/partner violence and childhood trauma, as well as pervasive and traumatic cultural norms such as sexism and racism. Some people are under the constant threat of non-safety because of their gender or race and find it difficult to impossible to know when to let their guard down and begin to feel safer. Without that sense of feeling safer at some point, this freeze stays in place.

When we are stuck in Freeze, our body often experiences any kind of stressful situation as a threat on our life and their nervous system is protecting us by shutting down. Sometimes our nervous system doesn’t know the difference and it over-reacts to non-life threatening situations as such. As a result, we have less access to those responses, which are important resources for our survival and ability to thrive and feel safe.

Some common signs of someone being stuck in a chronic freeze response are: not being connected to their body (disassociation), shut off emotionally, depressed, lethargic, constipated/gut issues, difficult trusting and connecting with people, anxiety, difficulty making decisions, isolation, difficulty feeling anything (including joy and pleasure), and self harming behaviors.

We know white European ppl have chronic freeze patterns in our nervous systems from hundreds of years of perpetrating, being victims of, and being complacent in torture, war, rape, colonization, murder of women/healers/queers and people of color, etc. We learned tremendous survival strategies, some nourishing and some harmful. Sometimes, in order to survive you need to not feel emotions and white folks can be really good at this, especially when we are perceived as being “bad”. We will go to great lengths to not be perceived as bad. We believe that to be racist equals being bad so therefore we believe we must not be racist because we are “good”. It is a masterful strategy, rooted in survival responses but also very harmful, to not be held accountable for harmful behavior.

We see this Freeze show up in white “liberal” spaces, meetings, and platforms, among folks who are actively working for change and then get called out on their harmful behavior. We see ourselves as good and therefore we must not be racist since we are well-meaning and working for change. But we act (or don't act, as it were) based on what is familiar to us (rooted in early childhood attachment styles and traumas- including ancestral). Its not an "either you're racist or you're not" type of situation; there is always more learning and unpacking to do over a lifetime. White folks tend to seek acceptance in these spaces. So when we are seen as saying or doing something that caused harm, we freeze sometimes. We don’t often realize that current situations remind our bodies of long-ago overwhelming experiences that we never processed. These get buried deep in our Somatic consciousness. This is how our collective nervous system becomes stuck in survival mode over generations; we become less and less able to respond and recover well (resiliency). And sometimes it still happens even if we have done some of that healing work.

White anti-racists must continue to work to heal the frozen places in us around so that we can show up and face the pain of seeing the harm we continue to cause and see our complacency in racist culture. It is imperative that folks with European ancestry work through our intergenerational trauma and the freeze patterns we hold in our bodies and minds, as well as our attachment wounds so we can more fully show up and change the ways white supremacy, misogyny, and capitalism abuse us all, especially people of color, poor folks, women, and the LGBTQ community.

It is impossible to separate out the personal from the cultural but if we are aware of our freeze responses it can help us expand our awareness and help each other be able to access more of our resilient nervous system responses. From there, we can take action in ways that feel connected to ourself and our communities. From there, we can help our white friends, neighbors, and family members to thaw too. We can develop the on-going skills needed to own our mistakes, name the mistakes we see in each other, and to notice when we need to slow things down a bit in order to pay attention to what needs to be tended to with care.

]]><![CDATA[My philosophy on "Healing" (at this moment in my evolution)]]>Thu, 08 Aug 2019 12:54:20 GMThttp://lisanewell.com/blog/my-philosophy-on-healing-at-this-moment-in-my-evolution

I believe we are already healed and whole in the deepest part of ourselves but we have experienced things in this life that make us forget that. Sometimes remembering that tiny spark inside is what gets us through horrific situations. Personal trauma can make us feel shattered, more often than not, but it usually doesn't happen in a vacuum. The pervasive and trans-generational traumas of colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, war, and oppression is the soup we all swim in and impacts the ways we develop and relate to each other, as both perpetrators and victims of harm.

We are also are spectacularly resilient.

One of my deepest inquiries into the human experience: How can we practice being our full, authentic selves in the face of oppression, abuse, trauma, and illness, and also in the face of connection, care, community, activism, and love?

Wholeness, in my view, isn't an ableist attitude of having an in-tact, "perfect" (by society's standards) body or a new age, "positive" outlook on life. Its about our deepest self (highest self? best self? soul?) that was never broken and will never be broken, despite all of the losses. We do not need to be fixed. Systems of unfairness and oppression need to be dismantled and healed. As we do that in big and small ways, we can heal together. We gain incredible gifts and skills because of what happened to us and no one can take those away. Deep within us, there is a part of us that is longing for connection, spark, pleasure, and joy but that part doesn't always have a chance to come forward, for so many reasons. (See another blog post about that)

One of the keys to this is building mutually compassionate relationships. Can we practice really seeing each other? Really seeing ourselves? Expanding our capacity to be with the discomfort of it all without completely freezing or running away or fighting? If we can look deeply at ourselves in a very honest and transparent way, especially the ways we have caused harm, we can create a stronger communities that are inclusive and based on fairness and compassion.

We live in a culture (here in the US) that negates our natural, wild, animal selves and values intellect over body. Despite the fact that many of were taught to be disconnected from nature and therefore our bodies, and therefore our natural responses, we all have the capacity to heal from traumas, emotional suffering, and overwhelming experiences because we are wired for it. We are also wired for connection and community... not for separation and hate. But we cannot do this alone. Sometimes it feels impossible to remain authentic, open, trusting, and vulnerable but healing is possible, if we have the trustworthy help at the right time.

But there is no finish line!!! There is no point at which we can say "AH yes, I am now HEALED" and then life gets super easy and we don't suffer anymore :-P Its a process, a spiral, and it takes time. (See another blog post about that)

I am endlessly fascinated by and curious about what creates the conditions for humans to "heal" and how justice is linked with healing... across differences, generational traumas, oppression, and politics.

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