Time for Change

I finished my degree and now I feel like my world is about to flip upside down. I know I can't stay at my current position. It seems to have been made clear to me that there will be no promotion for me in the near future and I can't continue to stay underemployed for long. I have reached a point when I know that change needs to happen, I just don't know how big of a change it will be. Should I sell my place? Should I move out of state? What specialty should I go into? Should I get my masters? Should I get my CMA or my CPA certifications? Getting my bachelor's degree just seems to have opened up more doors and left me with more decisions to make.

It does feel really good to be done. Especially when I have worked so hard. Finishing three years of work in eight months wile working full time could have sent me to the hospital. I almost don't know what to do with all the free time I have now. The best part is hearing my mom tell me how proud she is of me. She is telling everyone about my graduation. She'd probably tell the cashier at the grocery store if she thought he would listen. She called and left me a voice mail singing, "Happy graduation to you..." She is coming to see me in a few days and I am really excited about that.

I guess only time will tell. Hopefully I will have it figured out within the next few months.

The Honest Truth

I have had lots of thoughts on my mind. Many of them have focused of the principal of truth. For starters I was thinking that perhaps I should explain the name of this blog.  I have thought about the phrase "the honest truth" and I just think it is silly because it is unnecessarily redundant. I always think of an uneducated hillbilly saying it when he may be in trouble and it makes me smile. The other reason I liked this phrase is that my name, Alicia means honesty or truth in many translations I have seen. I really do like that aspect of my name because I feel like truth is so important.

Sometimes we think of truth and we think that it should be easy to find, or easy to figure out but in reality we sometimes have to get through a tangled web of lies to get to the truth. There is the surface truth and then there is the deeper or full truth that is even harder to get to and harder to come to understand. The longer I live the more I feel like truth is anything but obvious.

Lately in the news we have a man who wants to pretend to be a woman. We also have a white woman pretending to be a black woman and it seems like everyone wants to throw in their opinions about if he is a she and if she is black. It almost seems like the media wants to help justify and legitimize the lies. Then we are all supposed to take sides. It is all just so silly and to some so confusing when the truth should be clear as day.

I often think about the scripture in John 8:32 when I think about truth. I feel like the truth in this passage even gets misunderstood. People always seem to focus on "the truth shall make you free" part as if they are saying that telling, or confessing the truth will set you free. I believe that is true in many ways but that isn't what the scripture says, It says, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Truth is power. Only as we come to know and act on the truth we will be free. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well in this world we live in, it isn't always so easy. I can definitely see how confusion is a real form of bondage.

You just have to watch a few commercials to get your daily lies in. Everyone selling something seems to twist the truth for their benefit. People peddling things are constantly sending you messages, that even if they are true, they certainly aren't the full truth or both sides of the truth. This is why I knew I could never go into advertising and why I didn't want to sell anything. I could never live with myself.  I do try to always be honest and if I have lied about something guilt usually doesn't let me continue on in my way for long.

The scriptures even share times when it is okay to lie or not tell the whole truth, like when you are about to be killed by evil men who want to steal your wife. Or there is the deceiving that goes on during war to save lives.

The other thought that has been on my mind is whether it is better to lie than to hurt someones feelings. The dreaded question for a man is when an overweight woman asks him, "Do I look fat in this?" Are they just expected to lie? There aren't really any good responses to that question. We have all been faced with similar situations like this where we have to decide what is the right thing to say.

Then I think about the Savior and how people were always trying to catch him in his words so they would be able to condemn him to death and yet he very masterfully said exactly what he needed to say to both share truth and not be pinned down by them. I can't think of a time that the Savior ever compromised the truth to make someone feel better in a lie. I also can never think of a time that he ever wanted to hurt or shame a lost soul. He just wanted to love people and give them the truth that would make them free.

I think that is what we all want to do in situations like this and yet we often believe that we have to choose between truth and people's feelings. It just makes me feel like I need to be better about studying the life of Christ and then I would probably handle situations like the above much better. 

A couple of scriptures stand out to me on truth, One is John 8:44 talking about the father of lies and the other is 2 Timothy 3:7, "Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of God." The more I think about it the more I believe that we are foolish to believe that we can come to know truth in any real depth without the help of God. God doesn't just know the surface truth. He knows the whole and complete truth. He knows our backgrounds, our motives, our hopes, fears and desires. I am so grateful that not only is he all knowing but he also loves us and that is a pretty amazing combination.

Well that is the honest truth according to me, which doesn't necessarily mean much.  :) 

Bad Boys

I came home to about eight police vehicles, K-9 dogs and a fire truck outside my building today. Can't say I got the best picture of it all...

Thankfully they weren't looking for me. I asked one of the officers what was going on and he asked me if I lived in #3. I said I lived in the 1st unit and he said that #3 had been burglarized and they were looking for the girl who lived there. They said that the thief got in through an unlocked back patio door and I guess someone saw the guy running away.

 

I did notice yesterday when I took out my trash that the cover on my grill had been lifted up, like someone had been inspecting it. Not sure what else that was because it hasn't been windy for a while. If that was what had happened, they probably saw the chains that I had it locked to and wanted to see what I was trying to protect.

 

I wonder if her patio really was unlocked or if they broke in. Lots of questions right now very few answers. They knocked on my door after about 10 minutes after being home and they asked me if I knew who lived in #3. I imagine that they wanted to call her to have her come home sooner. Perhaps more info will be posted on my HOA board because I am sure everyone wants to know what was going on.

 

Right now I am just grateful that it wasn't my place. I don't doubt that they inspected my place to try to break in not knowing that my place is like a fortress, well not quite. ;) I am also glad that I am so vigilant about leaving a stick in my patio door. I am not feeling bad at all right now about the fact that I can be pretty anal about locking things up really well and being really careful. Phew!

Healing Trauma (chapters 5 & 6)

The last two chapters are pretty short. They talk about healing sexual trauma, growing spiritually and helping others avoid being or feeling traumatized.

In Chapter 5 he mentions the statistic that one in four persons worldwide are sexually assaulted in the world. He also says that there are other ways a person can feel sexually traumatized. He mentions gynecological procedures and abortions. He says that all sexual trauma is about violation and he mentions the following violations:

• Intrusion into our sacred space
• Rupture of personal, emotional, sexual and energetic boundaries
• A shock to our internal organs
• Feeling soiled, dirty, damaged
• Deep unexplainable feelings of shame or guilt
• The inability to form deep, sustaining relationships
• A sense of being frozen or shut down
• Overwhelming emotions such as rage, hate and terror
• Feelings of extreme isolation-a sense of not feeling connected to one's environment, the human race and to one's self

He compares humans and animals and says that when young animals are threatened they seek the protection of a parent, the only difference between animals and humans is that humans at every age seek the comfort of others when they are fearful or stressed. One of the biggest problems with sexual trauma is that many of the perpetrators that hurt, humiliate and violate are the ones that are supposed to help and protect us. This can set a child up for a lot of confusion. I am so grateful that I had two very loving parents and this was an issue that I have never had to deal with.

On the other side of the spectrum, he said that one of the biggest problems in sexual trauma is that feelings and sensations that are natural to human beings get pathologized and it becomes difficult for humans to know what to do with these feelings. In his mind, any attempt to dictate what thoughts, feelings and sensations are proper and improper creates a breeding ground for guilt and shame and I would probably add confusion. He said however that these thoughts and feeling do not need to be acted out in inappropriate ways. Families can become a model for shaping healthy instead of damaging behavior.

He talks about how parents need to maintain healthy boundaries with their children but not be afraid to show warmth and affection to them.

On spirituality in Chapter 5 he seems to say that it naturally develops when we overcome our trauma. He says that the energies that are released when we heal from trauma are the wellspring of our creative, artistic and poetic sensibilities and they can be summoned to propel us into the wholeness of our intelligence. Trauma is about thwarted instincts. When we allow them their rightful domain, with the full presence of body and mind we gain access to our own energy and enthusiasm and naturally become closer to God.

When I was in my institute class a few weeks ago the teacher asked us what can keep us from feeling the Spirit of God and I am sure she was thinking about things like not reading our scriptures, not saying our prayers and all the other easy answers. I raised my hand and I said "trauma". She really didn't know what to say or do with my comment and she wrote up on the board, "low self esteem" instead, but after reading this book I can see more clearly how trauma can affect us spiritually even if it isn't the first thing we think of or the easiest to understand.

In the end of the book he gives helpful tips and techniques for preventing trauma. He said that trauma is inevitable and we will all feel it at some point in our lives. The key is to help prevent the long term damage. His steps include the following:

• Act immediately
• Encourage a sense of safety
• Stay with the injured person
• Encourage the person to fully experience their bodies sensations
• Stay fully present
• Don't go it alone
• Allow time for processing
• Allow the emotions to be felt without judgment
• Focus on sensations
• Let the energy discharge

In the end of the book he says that the reason that traumatic reactions can hide for years is that the maturing nervous system is able to control the excess energy. Children are wonderfully receptive to experiencing the healing side of a traumatic reaction. Your job is to simply provide an opportunity for this to occur. A few minutes spent with your child in an appropriate way can not only minimize the chance of lasting effects, but also make the child more resilient to later life stresses.

In the end I am very grateful that my brother in law recommended this book to me. For me, like I have said previously, it has been very eye opening to me and has helped me see and understand what is going on with others in the world around me. It also helps me to see that I probably have some work I need to do on myself. It has given me simple ways to heal and be aware of my own feelings and reactions.

Healing Trauma (chapter 4)

In chapter 4 he starts to get into some of the exercises that he talks you through in the CD. None of the exercises are anything unusual. They seem to be all about just grounding you and reconnecting you with your body. He talks about how trauma causes us to disconnect with our bodies and we can feel very uncomfortable in our own skin. He says that we need to reestablish the connection with our bodies and befriend our bodies again.

He tells us that we need to focus on the sensations in the body an not on intense emotions. He says that we need to be aware of any emotional reaction that we may have as we are doing the exercises, but we need to pay attention to how we experience the emotions in our bodies sensations. He says that before trauma you are not overwhelmed by your feelings, but after trauma, feelings can be completely overwhelming.

He reinforces again that these exercises are all about rebuilding the connection with our bodies because trauma is all about a loss of connection. The main idea in practicing these exercises is for you to begin to feel your skin and your muscles as boundaries holding and containing your sensations and feelings. I am not going to go into too much detail with the exercises because I can't do them justice and I have really been to busy to give them the time and attention that I need to while I am in school so I'll just recommend the book and CD to everyone. Some of the exercises may seem a little cheesy and silly but I can see how they can be helpful.

He goes into quite a bit of detail about the "felt sense". He says that even if we are not consciously aware of it, the felt sense is telling you how you feel at any given moment. It is relaying the overall experience of the organism, rather than interpreting what is happening from the individual parts. Perhaps the best way to describe the felt sense is to say that it is the experience of being in a living body that understands the nuances of its environment by way of its responses to that environment.  

The physical (external) senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are elements that contribute only a portion of the information that builds a foundation for the felt sense. Other important data are derived from our bodies internal awareness - the positions it takes, the tensions it has, the movements it makes, its temperature, etc. Our felt sense can be influenced and changed by our thoughts, but it is not a thought. Emotions contribute to the felt sense, but they play a less important role than most people believe.

The feelings we experience are typically much more subtle than we can convey in language. The felt sense is so integral to our nature that we can take it for granted to the point of not even realizing that it exists until we attend to it. To the degree that we experience the felt sense as ever shifting and are able to embrace this constant flow, we will move out of trauma to life.

When people enter a new situation they focus their attention on the new event. Traumatized people tend to be riveted on their past traumas; new situations are connected to and constricted by that past event. The key to changing is staying with the sensation until it changes. That is the nature of all sensation.

Traumatized people, generally, have become fearful of their own aggression. They begin to emerge from immobility and suppress this life saving response which then can throw them back into paralysis. This keeps them from reengaging in life. Often traumatized people feel nothing or they feel rage, and this is often expressed in inappropriate ways. By experiencing aggression in healthy ways a person can begin to give way to a healthier middle ground between numbness and rage.

That is all I am going to share about chapter 4. It is really packed with a lot of information and I feel like I just need to tell people to get their own copies of this book. As valuable as I can see that it can be, I feel bad that I haven't given the exercises more time and attention. If nothing else it has just been good to be aware of the reactions my body has when it feels threatened or overwhelmed and it also helps me to understand other people's reactions to me. I am finishing up my accounting degree and I am in a really tough class that is taking up every second of my free time. I keep saying that I am going to focus on this more when I finish up. I hope that is the case.

Healing Trauma (chapter 3)

Chapter three goes into how trauma affects the body. He starts by explaining that the thing that sets us apart from animals is the rational part of our brain. We need to understand this because he goes on to explain that prey animals have their lives threatened all the time but they are rarely traumatized. They have the ability to shake off life threatening encounters, and go on with their lives as if nothing happened.

The effects of trauma are a natural phenomenon in all animals but the problem happens when the process of shaking off this frozen energy doesn't happen. The effects of trauma can stay in our bodies with long term psychological effects if we don't recognize them and learn to release them. Peter Levine says that methods that don't focus on enabling people to reconnect with their bodies have limited success.

So what happens in our bodies when we are threatened? One of three things, we prepare for fight, flight, or we freeze. Sometimes we go through all three of those stages. Our bodies mobilize vast amounts of energy to escape or they become overwhelmed and freeze so we can play dead which also numbs us so we do not feel pain. This extra strength comes from a large increase of blood into the muscles, and the release of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline.

If the message to release this built up energy is never given, the brain continues to release high levels of adrenaline and cortisol, and the body holds on to this ramped up high energy state. Unless we find a way to release this excess energy, our bodies will continue to respond as if it were in pain or helpless long after we have recovered from any physical injury. So what prevents this release of energy? Why can't we release this energy as animals do?

Humans use the immobility response, or frozen energy regularly when we are injured or feel overwhelmed. Unlike the animal world we have trouble returning to normal after being in this state. The feelings that we need to steer ourselves back to the present become numbed out. This is the key. Dr. Levine believes that this is the primary factor in avoiding being traumatized. If animals do not release their frozen energy they will die. Humans rarely die from trauma, but if they do not resolve it their lives can be severely diminished by its effects. Some people describe their lives as "living death".

Dr. Levine believes that we have the ability to shake off this frozen energy just like animals do and sometimes we just need appropriate guidance to shake off the effects of overwhelming events and return to our lives using the exact same procedures that animals use. Trauma is primarily physiological. It happens initially to our bodies and our instincts and then it spreads to our minds, emotions and spirits.

If we were animals and didn't have a rational part of our brain we would move out of our immobility response without a second thought. We as humans can be frightened by the intensity of our own energy and latent aggression and we brace ourselves against the power of these sensations. This bracing prevents the discharge of energy to restore normal functioning. Undischarged energy is stored in the nervous system, setting the stage for the formation of the symptoms of trauma.

While we are frozen, any movement is frightening and chaotic. As we begin to release this energy we will feel less threatened and overwhelmed by life. As we move from fixity to flow, we experience coherency, reconnection with life, more peace and we are no longer trapped by the events of the past, some of which we may not even remember.

That part was really encouraging for me. I thought I had to make a list of all the ways in which I may have experienced trauma in my life, but the reality is that we don't need to remember what happened, we just need to recognize the symptoms of trauma in our lives and learn to release it.  The effects of trauma are stored as fragmentary experiences in our bodies not in the rational parts of our brains.

The release of energy can be dramatic and visible, or subtle and quiet. It can be intense shivering or the slightest sense of inner trembling. Afterwards, you may notice that things fall into place more easily or that you are calmer and relaxed. Things that once upset you will not bother you as much and you may be less critical of yourself, or you may experience a deepening of your sense of well being.

The changes can also be more dramatic. Chronic pain can disappear, you may be able to do things you've never tried, your relationships with others may become freer and easier. You may feel a surge of passion and personal power. When trauma heals, shift happens. Then he wishes us the best of luck in our own personal healing journey.

Healing Trauma (chapter 2)

Dr. Levine begins chapter 2 by defining trauma in greater depth. People can be traumatized by any event they perceive to be life threatening. It does not matter if the event is actually life threatening, the only thing that matters is the person's perception of the threat and an incapacity to deal with it. He shares examples of war, abuse, violence and catastrophic illnesses but then he shares less obvious causes like car accidents, medical procedures, minor injuries, natural disasters, extreme temperatures, loud noises and birth for both mother and child. He mentions that even the thought of some of these things may cause us to have a physiological response.

He goes on to explain some of the responses we may have to trauma that we may not be aware of, that all reside under the umbrella of anxiety.  He says, "It is very important to understand that the nervousness or anxiousness, or almost any response you might have, has to do with the arousal or activation of the energy you experience during the original overwhelming event. When you are threatened your body instinctively generates a lot of energy to help you defend yourself against the threat. This is the energy we work with in healing trauma, so we need to be aware of it."

He said that when we feel these feelings it is our body telling us that something isn't right. This something needs our attention and if these feelings aren't dealt with they will develop into the symptoms of trauma. He gives the example that the symptoms of the flu go away in a few days. The effects of trauma do not. Then he goes into greater detail of these symptoms he is referring to.

Hyperarousal- Increased heart rate, sweating, difficulty breathing, cold sweats, tingling, muscular tensions, repetitious thoughts, racing mind and worry.

Constriction- A narrowing of perceptions that allows us to focus on the threat. It alters a person's breathing, muscle tone, and posture to promote efficiency and strength. Blood vessels in the organs constrict so that more energy is available to the muscles which are tensed to take on defensive action. At the same time our digestive system is inhibited, we may also feel numb and shut down.

Disassociation and denial- In trauma disassociation and denial seem to be a favored means of enabling a person to endure experiences that are at the moment beyond endurance.  When a traumatic event happens we may act as if nothing happened because the emotions that come with truly acknowledging the situation are too painful to deal with.

Helplessness, Immobility and freezing- This is not the ordinary sense of helplessness, it is the sense of being collapsed, immobilized and utterly helpless. It is not a perception, belief, or a trick of the imagination. It is real.

He then gives a long list of symptoms of trauma in the body. Here they are, hypervigilance, flashbacks, sensitivity to light and sound, hyperactivity, exaggerated emotional and startle responses, nightmares, mood swings, shame, lack of self worth, inability to deal with stress, sleepiness, panic attacks, mental blankness, avoidance behavior, attraction to danger, addictive behaviors, exaggerated or diminished sexual activity, amnesia or forgetfulness, inability to love, nurture and bond with other individuals, fear of dying, self-mutilation, loss of sustaining beliefs (spiritual, religious, interpersonal), excessive shyness, diminished emotional response, inability to make commitments, chronic fatigue or low energy, immune problems, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, asthma, skin disorders, digestive problems, severe PMS, depression and feelings of impending doom, feelings of detachment, alienation and isolation, reduced ability to formulate plans.

To heal ourselves he says we need to trust the messages our bodies are giving us, listen to these calls, increase the awareness of our bodies, and use these messages to begin to heal our traumas. Our bodies are sending us messages that healing needs to happen.