Following the breadcrumbs to improve mental health

[indigo22]

Hi everyone,

The last few months have been somewhat confusing as I have discovered more about my mental / physical health and how it has all been connected. I had not put the pieces together, I am not sure why, it seems so obvious now.

I have dealt with Dysthymia since about 12 and Major Depression since about 14 but was not diagnosed until my 40s and had no idea that had been the problem all along. I knew I wasn't like everyone else but thought I was just born that way. Back then mental health was not a subject that was openly discussed and the signs mostly went unrecognised and untreated. I had about 10 years of talk therapy with a social worker that helped immensely.

I have had a sensitive digestive system for a good portion of my life, not so much that I sought treatment, just things like indigestion with certain foods, bloating and the like. I suppose I thought everyone had those types of issues.

I have also had nervous system reactions over the past 15 years, like involuntary shaking in certain situations, that I had put down to getting older and being less resilient having been through a lot of difficult challenges.

I have been seeing a psychotherapist who also does somatic work (turns out you were right mmmekitty, I did need some more help). The first session of somatic work, in this case EFT (tapping), brought up a deep and long standing belief that I did not deserve to be helped. The emotions were buried so deep that I was not even aware of them. After that session things went haywire physically for a few days and took some weeks to start to settle.

Being the type of person who needs to have an understanding of what is happening and why, I have been reading many books on the symptoms I have had. That is when I began to join the dots about how interconnected by mental and physical health actually were. It has required a lot of processing on my part, and an acknowledgement of what I have been consciously unaware of, but it has been necessary to finding a way forward. This will be an ongoing journey as new symptoms show up that need to be looked at.

I know now that there is a lot of unreleased trauma in my body that is a contributing factor in not healing mentally or physically and I know now what needs to be done to improve. There is only so much that the medical profession can do, I believe the rest of the responsibility lies with us in digging deeper to find the causes and the answers. In many ways, that in itself becomes empowering.

Take care all.

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo,

Thank you so much for your suggestions re: past lives, quantum healing etc. I'm interested in all those things too. I'm glad you are really finding some interesting links and possibilities. The one challenge for me in relation to some approaches is managing CPTSD. For example, a few people have recommended Joe Dispenza to me. I've watched plenty of videos, interviews with him etc. But I can't feel a connection with my experience. I then saw an interview with him where he described an idyllic childhood with parents who always supported him and his brother, encouraged them to be creative etc. He also said that he was an adult before he understood that other people experience suffering. He has had his single incident trauma of his bike accident, but beyond that his world is alien to mine. My childhood was like the complete opposite - full of fear. I also was acutely aware of other people's suffering from my earliest memories. I read an account of a woman who went to one of his workshops. She had experienced childhood trauma and abuse. On the first day she went quite quickly into a severely traumatised state, remained that way throughout then had a massive breakdown afterwards. She was wracked with fatigue and pain and had to quit her job and ended up in bed for 6 months. After that point she slowly started to recover and thought maybe she was beginning to get some belated benefit.

I think what I'm trying to say is when you start delving into the quantum field and you have complex trauma it can actually be extremely precarious. I think that's why I have oriented more to smaller-scale things with people who have either direct experience of complex trauma themselves or extensive experience working with people with complex trauma. So I did a course last year that I think I mentioned previously with the medical doctor also trained as a shaman who sang healing songs that are a form of medicine and I experienced profound altered states and some deep healing. But it was in a small group setting with trauma-informed people. I also did a workshop earlier this year with him again and three other practitioners. One of them sang a traditional icaro that moved me so much. She is a practitioner with CPTSD herself and there is a profound gentleness and awareness there. I am planning to ask her if she can sing to me in relation to the grief that's still affecting me in relation to my mother. My intuition tells me she is the right person to ask.

So I think I am interested in the same things as you but I am just having to be very selective about the path I follow and people whose approaches I try to work with. I think Joe Dispenza is sincere in what he is doing and I know some people have gotten great benefit doing his meditations and going to his workshops. I think what he is teaching is essentially his own form of what has been practised for millennia in indigenous cultures working with altered states and the spiritual realm to effect healing. But some of his model doesn't fit CPTSD. For example, he is strongly focussed on creating a positive future reality by releasing yourself from past programs of thought - to no longer see through the lens of the past. This makes sense. But with complex trauma there is a different kind of challenge. Those of us with early CPTSD, especially with strong annihilation fears, have spent our whole lives dissociated and therefore not inhabiting ourselves. There is actually a process you have to go back through where you allow yourself to feel and know your experiences that you detached from in order to begin a grieving and healing process. You actually need the lens of the past because you were absent from it. It is so much more nuanced and involved than Joe Dispenza's model and there are more steps involved. That's why I'm very drawn to Peter Levine who like me had the fear of utter annihilation and obliteration from birth. He understands the steps involved and the gradual nature of it. When that annihilation fear exists, you have to provide a particular kind of safe space for someone with complex trauma to actually be able to effect any meaningful change and avoid harm. I've gradually learned to sense into what is a safe holding space vs what might not be for the vulnerabilities I have.

Sorry, going to run over word limit. Will add paragraph reply to your last post... Hugs xx

[Eagle Ray]

And just finally I wanted to say...

I saw a fascinating documentary on a young Scottish boy who experienced a past life that he began to recall from the age of two in considerable detail about coming from an island and a particular other family. The island was Barra in Scotland and many of his knowings/past life memories were able to be later verified in relation to real things and people on the island even though his current family had not been there and had no connection with it. The film is on YouTube and is called The Boy Who Lived Before. It may be that on my own journey I begin to uncover such things myself. At the moment I am more aware of specific ancestral trauma that has been passed down with undoubtedly an epigenetic component and I'm working towards healing those things. I'd be interested to hear how you go with any of the things you try. Thanks for the message about the videos. I did get to watch the Sue Morter one which was definitely very interesting. I can see how she is working with energy in a really dynamic way. I probably won't get to watch anymore but will see how I go tomorrow. I hope you're having a lovely weekend and always happy to chat.

Hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I can understand your need to pick and choose healing methods, I wasn't really suggesting you try any of the things I mentioned, was more talking about stuff I am curious about trying.

When What the bleep came out, I found myself instantly drawn to what Joe Dispenza had to say, almost like a magnet, so I knew I needed to delve into what he was talking about. I think you are right that what he is teaching is not new, but a lot Westerners have been in the dark about many of the Eastern and indigenous methods and I think he has a persona that many are drawn to.

I will have a look for that YouTube video you mentioned. I had this amusing thought that the new generation of TV shows will be things like, This is your past-life and Who do you think you were.

Keeping this fairly short tonight because I spent nearly 3 hours working in the garden today and I'm a bit worn out, I got quite a lot done though.

I hope you had a lovely weekend, will talk again soon,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo,

Yes, I think it's important to follow whatever you are drawn to. I've had a few people try to push in me in the direction of Joe Dispenza, but I have an adverse reaction in my body and know his approach doesn't fit for me. He speaks of needing to use the mind to "defy the body" and "overcome the body". With complex trauma you have been fragmented and divided against yourself your whole life, and so I have found that defying my body just increases that fragmentation. In a sense with complex trauma you've always been defying the body and actually need to do the reverse. With Peter Levine's approach it is all about working gently with the body, not defying it. I think what happens with complex trauma from my own experience, is that as you allow the body to be and do what it needs to do, the kinds of spiritual experiences Joe Dispenza is talking about naturally emerge. But for him it has been more a case of the persistent meditation practice to bring up those same experiences. He hasn't had the complex trauma processes in his body to work through. Instead he had a specific traumatic injury as an adult which is a different dynamic. But at the end of the day, it's coming to the same source. So I get something out of his approach, but I have to do it differently than his methodology.

I think you would find the documentary on YouTube about the boy in Scotland really interesting. The child psychiatrist who appears in it, Jim Tucker, has made it his life's work to try to understand the experiences of past lives that are often evident in young children who usually lose the connection by the age of 6. But up until that age there are many documented cases now of children knowing detailed information about a past life that is later verified but could not have been known by the young child based on anything from their life so far. Someone whose work I find really interesting is that of evolutionary biologist Rupert Sheldrake and his idea of 'morphic resonance'. He understands there to be a morphic field in which there is a collective memory, and I wonder about these ideas in relation to consciousness and past lives.

As you've got me interested in past lives, I just watched an interview with Jim Tucker on the Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman. Scott told a story of being aged 3 when he suddenly had this profound memory of being an old man. That reminded me of an experience I had. I used to fairly regularly attend sound healing sessions during which I would go on altered state journeys in the form of waking dreams. In one of those I saw my body rising out of the body of a dying elderly man. It was not traumatic or anything. He was just lying in a bed and he looked exactly like the same old man who had come to me as a wise guide in a dream years earlier at a pivotal time in my life. I followed his guidance from that dream in my actual life and it led to a good outcome with a life choice. I wonder if that elderly man is like a past life for me? At the time I understood him as an intrapsychic component of my own consciousness, not necessarily a past life, but now I wonder.

I am on the mailing list of Anita Moorjani who you may know of. I got an email 2 days ago about an in-person spiritual retreat she is doing with Sue Morter, Bruce Lipton and Gregg Braden. Obviously you need to be in the US to attend, but I just thought you would be interested to know about that combination of people and there might be something that comes out of it later such as a recording or publication. I have two of Anita Moorjani's books, Dying to Be Me and Sensitive is the New Strong which I found both really good to read.

I'm glad you had that time in the garden. It can feel really good after spending time out amongst the plants in the fresh air. I hope you sleep well tonight.

Hugs,

ER