Can you enter my world?

This is not me asking this of you so much although it seems to me that our body responds deeply to true love and presence in a society that can be so often dismissive and negating.  I am posting this after watching the terrific videos posted by Broken Blue Sky on empathy most especially as it relates to helping those with dementia.

In our society it seems that so much of our true deep feeling and emotion has to be buried, this happens even more so when we go through a lot of loss, abuse or trauma.  I think in schools and society we so quickly try to condition out softer feelings and sensitivities and then when we undergo a death or trauma we are expected to get on with things as if nothing had happened after only a short while.

I live in Australia and here the dominant ethos is of the laconic laid back person who isn’t affected or fazed too much by anything : “she’ll be right mate” is a common saying.  At times its great to take things easy and be calm and relaxed but to only be valued if you are cool, calm, rational, unemotional and in control is a form of violence really and a masks a kind of antipathy, fear or hostility to genuine feeling, passion and needs that can underlie it.

If we are conditioned to put on a bright face or cover over or swallow down things it is hard on the body.  In the second video posted where Naomi Feil is working with Gladys she shows how the deep feeling is trapped  and locked down so far into Gladys’ body that it is in now only shown in hand tremors and repetitive movements.  I have always thought that diseases like Parkinsons were a sign of repressed life energy and feeling gone under so that they now only appeared in tremors.  I go through some of this kind of contraction and spasming in my own body as I attempt to put energy to my feelings.  It is often for example only when I read one of my sad blogs to my therapist that the feelings come out as tears. When I write them I am in intellectual mode and have an awareness of the feeling there but I am not actually expressing it in my body.   Locked in feeling becomes such a strong issue for those of us raised in repressive environments where we had to be traumatised and then fell into paralysis or what Elaine Aron calls ‘defeat’ depression.

Right now my body is signalling a need to eat and so I must do that.  I am very very greateful to Broken Blue Sky for sharing these videos with us.   I think we need those who have gone through trauma and become able to express it around us to teach us very important things about ourselves society and loving presence.  I will always be very grateful for those who were there for me when I was sad and so helped me to cry tears that may have remained trapped inside if I had not been freed to release and express them through another’s loving presence. I have also been shut down more times than I would care to remember by others and responded to with hostility or fear when I was really sad.

I have a sense that as a society the high prevalence of trauma and illnesses as a result we currently face are a huge wake up call to face what gets buried in the body and the unconsciously re-enacted or buried through addiction or another form of dissociating and distancing which then leads to more difficulties.  We need those in recovery to show us the way forward in this issue so we can bring to light what had to be hidden, locked away or trapped in the dark.  We need those who are willing able to listen deeply and fully enter the sufferer’s inner world to bring to light what they now find so hard to express.