Tag Archives: healing

Entherapalgia

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There is a particular emotional state, which through my years as both a therapist and a client of therapy I have come to recognize as a distinct state that we don’t seem to have a name for. It happens in the milliseconds following the experience of getting something we’ve needed for a significant length of time, almost in tandem with the needed relief. I’ve decided to begin calling it entherapalgia, meaning “the pain within healing.”

Somatically-speaking, it tends to show up as an opening sensation in the chest and/or stomach, often accompanied by a little gasp and a sigh that brings some muscle relaxation. Sometimes that relaxation is the softening feeling that precedes crying. Similarly, entherapalgia can feel like a sigh of relief and a punch in the stomach in tandem. As you might imagine if you can feel into those particular sensations, it can be difficult to tolerate.

Because it involves a lot of vulnerability, we will sometimes tense up when we predict that an experience will evoke the feeling of entherapalgia, or we try to clamp down on it once it’s begun. Both pleasure and pain share one entry point in vulnerability, so even though staying open is how we heal, it doesn’t always feel safe enough to do so.

Since I began using this word for myself and my clients, I’ve found that it’s quite helpful to expect healing to be a little painful. Why shouldn’t it be? Physical healing almost always is, especially when what we’re healing is something that we’ve been organizing ourselves around for a long time (my posture-correcting physical therapy comes to mind). When something pleasurable or relieving makes contact with something that hurts, of course we’d feel both. It’s an extra challenging one to be sure, as it seems that the experience of being vulnerable doesn’t really get easier, just more familiar. Though familiarity does bring some amount of comfort.

Part of the beauty of somatic work is in making space for healing by learning and practicing how to experience pain in a tolerable way. The aim is always for experiences to be embodied rather than solely intellectual, and the intellect and senses can be helpfully bridged with the right words. So I hope this term and its framing can be a support in our ever-progressing process of learning how to be vulnerable.

New Series: Sacred Masculinity Interviews

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In the autumn of 2016, I had the very moving experience of looking around and becoming aware of how many men around me are safe, aware, and helping. I’m sure that a good portion of this has to do with my age and my growing ability to surround myself with healthy people, but it also seems quite clear that something about masculinity is happening at a rapid rate.

After the election results came in later that year, it was so painfully clear how much toxicity still exists in our culture. The article I wrote about it at the time focused on toxic masculinity, and this series is focused on addressing that. But allow me to make a couple of things very clear: the toxicity within male gender socialization is definitely not the only kind that exists, and when I speak about masculinity, I am not talking about men. I use the term “sacred masculinity” to refer to a concept of qualities. One of the greatest gifts of this generation is the burgeoning awareness of intersectionality, and the concept of masculinity is just one section. I’m choosing to focus on it because I see a shift happening in society at large, and it’s showing up in my practice. As a therapist, I have the honor and privilege of getting to understand why and how people come to be as they are. As an activist, I feel compelled to share my insights, especially now.

A few months ago, I met with Meredith Redding to talk about the parallels we were seeing between the therapeutic process and what’s happening in our country. She’s one of my favorite colleagues and she really knows her shit when it comes to Depth Psychology, so I was extra excited to talk to her. We began by talking about shadow selves, and very quickly got onto the topic of masculinity. She said something that really stayed with me, because it was a succinct articulation of what I’d been seeing in my practice, too. “Something different is happening with the men,” she said.

We have a president who is such a clear embodiment of toxic masculinity that it has thrown us into a full-blown crisis. Yet there are a whole bunch of people who feel resonance with this man. When you get to talk to them in an honest and nonjudgmental setting, it becomes quite clear how much that has to do with concepts of masculinity that attempt to address the experience of desperation. In particular, the desperate desire to feel ok with oneself and to have some sense of command over one’s life. That is not how it can appear from the outside, and I am not for one second excusing any of the horrendous behavior that has led to and resulted from this. But if we want it to stop, we have to get to the heart of it. This is the case for every therapeutic process.

Blessedly, you can see already that we’re doing a whole lot of processing, and that it has the power to bring tremendous healing. The #MeToo Movement, the #BlackMenSmiling Movement, the unrelenting push for trans rights, and the incredible activist demonstrations by the children of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are shining examples.

How does this address the heart of the problem? If we look at this through the illuminating power of myth, we can think of this time as the return of the goddess to her natural position of power. That calls upon the god not to step down or retract his positive influence, but to act as a supportive counterpart. Goddess and god balance each other, each with an equal and opposite attribute with which to meet the other’s. We have been clear for some time on what does not bring balance: violence, superiority, and indifference. We need more examples of healthy masculinity and healthy men to be right in our faces more often. So let’s discuss with some emotionally intelligent people the qualities that they believe masculinity, in its pure and sacred form, has to offer.

Find the beautiful and ever-growing collection of interviews here.

This Thing That We’ve Been Calling Masculinity

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For a few weeks, I’ve been wanting to write about what I’ve been seeing and experiencing lately amongst males. What happened tonight in the election helped me to make it happen. I know most of us have little room to take in anything more right now, so just hang with me for a quick personal story, and I’ll get to the bigger picture.

I recently had an experience that surprised me by surprising me. I went to the birthday party of a friend who is new enough that I didn’t know most of her other friends. Late in the evening, upon leaving a drink with one of her male friends while I walked outside, I realized that I felt completely safe to do so. Not unchecked safe. Full presence and awareness safe. While feeling safe with men is not at all new to me (and while that’s not been without plenty of challenges, I feel very grateful for that), somehow this stood out to me. This man and the others were strangers. And yet I had absolutely no doubt that they were safe. I know that that is a packed statement in itself, because plenty of people have been hurt after being sure that they were safe. That crossed my mind, too. But I could feel it viscerally, and potently. And it was awesome. And as I said, I was surprised. Feeling that safe in vulnerability with strangers was new to me. And through that novel experience, I realized how often I’d actually felt unsafe with strangers.

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago how safe I feel around people I don’t know, I’d have said, “Quite.” And that’s how it goes. It is safe to assume that the fish has not yet discovered water. Only when I felt a change did I realize what I’d been swimming in. This is what happens when change occurs. We become aware of what was before.

I felt terribly grateful that evening. I was teary. It was like a big ol’ game of trust and I felt caught and held perfectly. This is the current state of gender relations, I thought, if only one newly sprouted branch of it. For me, feeling safe in a group of strangers is hugely about how much more complexity we have invited into gender notions.

As I began to write tonight, I reflected on my post about the hashtag movement “#MasculinitySoFragile.” What I realized more than ever before is that it is. It is fragile. As fragile as any other construct that is too rigid and too small.

But we have been rapidly expanding what masculinity (and femininity) means. We’ve been dissolving gender norms and expectations. This work goes back decades, but in the last several years, we seem to have almost caught up with reality. People of all genders have become far more vocal about sexism than ever before. Conversations turn more quickly to internalized -isms and the need for intersectionality than ever before.

But even when the oppressive force is gone (or is becoming defunct), we are left with the way we organized ourselves around it. Absolutely everyone can relate to this, regardless of privilege. At some point in our lives, we all experience another person’s attempt to restrict our self-expression. When that experience comes from a caregiver or other powerful entity, we organize ourselves around it in order to tolerate and survive it. So even when it’s removed, we find ourselves struggling with the same limits. Therapy revolves around this dynamic. We interrupt ourselves where others interrupted us. The work is to become conscious of those patterns, so that we have some choice in the matter. We re-organize in a way that’s uniquely suited to us, and then we constantly practice, refine or restructure it to keep to stay calibrated with our evolving needs.

As we move out of this old gender binary, look who appears: all the ickiest parts of toxic masculinity wrapped up in one individual. And only a narcissist could be such a caricature of it: no self, all artificial structure. A monster created by male socialization. Thinking about Frankenstein’s monster? Yep, Shelley knew her shit. It’s a miserable situation, and the monster is as plagued by it as the rest of us. Don’t ever think he’s not. He can still cause harm, yes. But remembering that he’s trapped inside his own tight constraints is a necessary awareness for maintaining empathy and clarity.

Ultimately, this can help us move forward. By exaggerating the character, we can see clearly its severe limitations. He is an example of what not to be, and of the dangers of trying to crush oneself into a tiny little concept. Seeing what not to do is a great way to learn boundaries when we are testing them by growing and expanding. With progress always comes regression. That’s how we integrate the progress. We move way outside of the emerging paradigm so that we can really see it before we feel able to comfortably step into it.

Even amidst my disbelief about what was happening, when I heard, “That’s it. Donald Trump is the President of the United States,” I thought, “Wow. That makes sense.” I don’t want it to. But that’s where we are. As a group, we can’t move too much faster than our slowest members. And therein lies much of our collective work. When you feel willing and able, help others to feel safe enough to speed up a bit. When they show you glimmers of authenticity, reflect it to them. And remind them that it’s ok to be afraid. We all struggle with unfolding.

So as I sit here reading and feeling about the outcome of this election, I take great comfort in the fact that I know very few people like Donald Trump. We are progressing. We don’t produce nearly as many “Trumps” as we used to. But sometimes there’s still too much fear to integrate what we’ve learned. And so we have before us the final stand of toxic masculinity before we blow it out the god damn airlock. It is the beginning of the very end of this deplorable construct. If you are already taking concrete steps towards abolishing the fear of self-expression, keep it up. Steady your hand at your post and help to provide the safe space for this country-sized tantrum. Be firm and also be warm. Work towards more critical thinking and more emotional intelligence. Constantly do your own healing work. Inspire it in others. And at every possible junction, teach it to children. Help to make it safe for people to express themselves. And in the meantime, soak up the presence of those around you with whom you feel safe and like yourself.

show your bleeding heart: A Guest Post from Tulasi Adeva

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Tulasi Adeva is a therapeutic mentor and embodiment facilitator who lives and works in beautiful Hanalei, Hawaii.

I had the honor of working with her at the Oakland Center for Holistic Counseling. She has a fiercely open and clear heart, and I was often speechless when I would hear her talk about the way she knows people and the world. She is often able to articulate what is deep down inside of us all, and this article is no exception. She wrote this beautiful, perfect piece in response to what happened in Orlando this week, and I have the honor of sharing with you here. This applies to everything, and I believe it’s terribly important to realize how vital this work is. I challenge you to allow her words into your body. Try them on and see what shifts, or what would need to.

“maybe vulnerability is the greatest key we hold to our collective healing. not vulnerability held close like in a poker game we are trying to win, but vulnerability revealed, vulnerability laid out for those around us to see.

this is not an easy thing. as humans we grow good at being guarded. we learn all too well how to hold our emotional cards close in. we learn to navigate the hazardous terrain of relationships by defending and protecting. the brain is so sophisticated and complex it manages our whole strategy in such a way that it feels like a second skin, like this is just the way it is.

but when you hold a baby in your hands, a fresh being newly breathing air, you know that our essential nature is vulnerability. and with vulnerability comes unconditional love. with vulnerability comes our capacity to trust. with vulnerability comes our capacity to fully be all the way here.

because let’s be real. this being alive is VULNERABLE.

we may try to hide away, and defend against, in order to protect ourselves, but that protection cuts us off from what we truly want… to be seen, acknowledged, appreciated, LOVED.

we are a complex system of beliefs and cultural conditioning. we are a store house of generational trauma and instinctual survival. amidst all this we are evolving at such a rapid rate, individually and collectively, that we don’t entirely know how to keep up. we are boiling inside.

with our deep desire. with our own fears. with confusion. with pain. with rage. with longing. with heartache. with a calling for more.

without a firm grip on our inner compass, a deep connection to our own heart, a tender acknowledgement of our own vulnerability we get locked into a stance of defense. we resist what is.

we want to hold on to what we know, we want to have it all figured out so we can avoid risk (vulnerability) and play it safe.

part of my teaching is about feeling what’s here to be felt. going all the way in. this is not an easy task, often it feels like the pain or discomfort will never end. but inevitably on the other side we meet our vulnerability, our tenderness, our hearts. and there we come to know ourselves more completely.

there is a teaching in relationship work to take 100% responsibility for what is going on in a relationship. in akido when practicing with another the resistance you feel, is your own. both of these teachings are pointing us toward self responsibility, personal accountability, toward a recognition that how we move and what we choose to do impacts the space and outcome of what unfolds.

but as david whyte says we have to take the close in step. before we can take 100% responsibility, before we can identify the perceived resistance in another as our own we have to know ourselves. i mean really get to know ourselves. look in the mirror and look deep. what are we hiding, what have we tucked away, what don’t we want others to know and see?

our pain is the catalyst for our creative expansion if we have the courage to face it and the willingness to see what’s there to be seen. when we meet and greet our own vulnerability it opens up space, it opens up compassion, it opens up a renewed relationship with responsibility – to ourselves and the world around us.

because no matter how we come in, what we’ve been told, each one of us is a sovereign being with a calling and a purpose for being here at this time. but until we get that, we are flying blind in a selfish charade of pleasure seeking and self protection.

amidst all that the world is reflecting back to us these days it is so easy to be broken hearted– especially if you are in touch with your own tenderness, with your own vulnerability. on countless occasions the intensity i have seen or felt or heard has knocked me to my knees. i’ve wanted to scream but i have kept my mouth shut. i have wanted to cry and so i did behind closed doors. i have wanted to pretend that this was not real and not going on, so i would look the other way and let life go on.
to be a vulnerable human being means to walk through the world with your heart broken open. it means to hold it bleeding in your hands because it’s yours and it’s rhythm matters. to be vulnerable means to be courageous… to move and live with heart. it means we must see ourselves- the light and the dark. it means we acknowledge who we are – divine beings with a greater purose and fallible humans figuring it all out. it means that we appreciate the path before us – the one we have chosen, with all the challenges and triumphs it provides, for this life is our teacher calling us back home to our whole-hearted-ness. it means we bring forward love – for ourselves and for each other, as often as possible, just as we would love that brand new, completely vulnerable baby.

when we are in touch with our own vulnerability and we see it in another, we are opened, connected, changed. today i watched a raw filmed video of a woman speaking the potent truth of something that touched and moved her deeply. she shared the healing of a vulnerability she has been carrying most of her life. and though it was not my story, i felt her in hers. though it was not my story i felt the healing happening. though it was not my story i understood that her healing is my healing for we are never alone and on our own, we are both that baby, we are both vulnerable to all that is unfolding.

lately every sign i see is a call for deepening. a soul dive beneath the surface of the way things seem and the labels and stories we can read. it is a tap root connection to the truth of our own soul. it is a willingness to be vulnerable and speak from that place, to share from that place, to lead from that place.

this world is changing. so rapidly. every day. there is so much more to it than big money and good branding and how many likes your posts receive. it is a life or death battle for the earth, for humanity, for heart. and the only way i can see to get through to the other side is to be all in. take your heart out in your hands and show it to the world.

what if we were courageous enough to be raw and real? what if we no longer held ourselves back? what if we practiced compassion for ourselves and each other, even when we disagree, because we remember and honor vulnerability?

i am still learning. i am practicing. i am afraid that you will hurt me, not see me, not care. i am afraid you will say it doesn’t matter, that i don’t matter and that i shouldn’t share. i fumble all the time. i do not have it all figured out. but when i tend to that still small voice within, i know i am 100% responsible for all of this and my voice matters, my heart wants to be felt. i am letting all of us down when i don’t let the truth of own vulnerability come out.

and so i offer it to you. i offer you a seat here with me, in a wide open space where all that needs to be said can be said. where all that you feel is a welcome expression of the truth of your experience, where all that i feel is a welcome expression of mine. and in this field i know we will meet and see each other again for the first time and remember that we are one. we are tender, vulnerable, open hearted love.

here we will change the world.”

Find Tulasi and her incredible work here.

Originally posted by Tulasi Adeva on June 14th, 2016. Source: http://www.rockyourjuicylife.com/inspire/2016/6/14/show-your-bleeding-heart. Reposted with permission from Tulasi Adeva.

Terry Coffey on Caitlyn Jenner: A Public Display of the Therapeutic Process

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The marriage of activism and the therapeutic process has been on my mind constantly. Perhaps that’s why I’m seeing so many examples of it lately, but I hear others remarking on it, too. We seem to be experiencing a major boost in raw feminism as of late. This particular public announcement of self-reflection and healing was such a display of activism that I couldn’t help but write about it.

After the Vanity Fair article “Call Me Caitlyn” was released, a man named Terry Coffey responded with the following post, which was promptly shared thousands of times:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a sentiment shared by many, who seemed to feel that the term “hero” being applied to Jenner negated other uses. It’s not an uncommon belief that the only true heroism comes in the form of facing physical danger, preferably war.

Well someone noticed that the image is actually not of real people, but of figurines. This was drawn to Coffey’s attention, and after some research and some pretty epic self-reflection, he created the following post:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a beautiful example this is of the therapeutic process of tuning in, self-reflecting, and practicing something more authentic. When Coffey educated himself on the history of the photograph he’d chosen, he must have had many, many sensations and emotions arise. I am very impressed with how honestly he listened to them. He let those feelings guide him to a new way of seeing things. And then he immediately and publicly exacted change. So not only do we get to hear about this incredible (and quick!) journey, but we get to be inspired by his process, which can in turn affect our own self-understanding.

When I saw Coffey’s follow-up posting, I didn’t feel surprised. I felt relieved. I had that lovely grounding sensation in my stomach that a deep truth can bring. This is what can happen when someone unpacks their beliefs. Love comes springing forward.

We probably don’t get to know what factors in Coffey’s life led him to react with that initial post, nor do we know where he’ll go from here, but the gift of witnessing his experience will remain. And there’s so much power in the fact that he will reach people who may otherwise not be exposed to such a change of tune, or those who would discount his second sentiment if it came from The Opposition. Interestingly, the sentiment isn’t actually that different. It’s just more inclusive. Transpeople are risking their lives for their freedom.