Hi there,
I'm Katie and welcome to another chat.
So a lot of us therapists have all kinds of like little doodads and toys and things to touch and pet and play with and fidget with in our offices.
And,
You know,
It's a way to support our clients and having a little bit of something to kind of orient to while we're dealing with kind of difficult things sometimes.
What we're doing is providing those to support our clients and staying out of the vortex.
In somatic experiencing,
They call it the trauma vortex,
But I also think it could be the stress vortex or even the pain vortex.
But a vortex is kind of a force field,
Right?
And it's this whole swirl of sensations and imagery and behaviors and emotions and meaning-making,
All the meaning-making that we get into.
And we just can't stop.
It just keeps going and going and going.
And sometimes we don't even realize that we're in the vortex.
And,
You know,
I'm no vortex scientist,
But,
You know,
Vortexes or vortices,
However you want to call it,
They are a force field.
They are strong and they pull you in.
Sometimes it takes just a kind of standing on the edge of a vortex till it sucks you out or sucks you in.
So what we're trying to do is support our clients.
To create their own counter vortex,
To go the opposite way,
To stay out of all of that.
And that involves resourcing other sensations that might bring about a sense of safety,
Or maybe even some imagery that supports calming down,
Maybe some other behaviors that might support that.
Um,
Also,
You know,
Working with resourcing,
Maybe more positive emotions associated with certain things,
Whatever they could be.
And also maybe coming up with a different meaning about what's happening in our lives or what's going on or,
Or what we're exploring,
Exploring.
So we create a counter vortex.
And it starts to go the opposite way.
And now it might take some time if you're someone who's used to going into the regular vortex on a frequent basis.
You know,
It's going to take a little bit of time to kind of notice and say,
OK,
OK,
There's another option.
I can go this other way.
I can start building my counter vortex bit by bit by bit by bit.
So that's what we do.
That's what a lot of this work is about,
Is about learning how to find your counter vortex.
And I love this work because it It amazes me all the time what folks can find that support them and resource and what they can orient to that helps keep them out of that spiral.
So you're welcome to share maybe your one thing that supports your counter vortex building.
I always love what people have to say because it's so many all kinds of different things,
Sometimes things you would have never thought of.
So I hope that provides a little bit of clarity.
Again,
The whole idea is building a counter vortex.
It takes some time.
It also takes a little bit of mindful awareness of just being in tune with ourselves,
Knowing where we're going,
Knowing knowing if we're in the counter vortex or if we're starting to go back into the stress vortex.
Anyways,
Appreciate you being here.
I was really excited to share this little tool and use it in a in a talk as I saw a client spinning it fast during an intense session.
I was like,
Oh,
Gosh,
They're literally holding a vortex early.
Doing the vortex thing.
So we slowed things down.
Slowed things down and we started to build the counter vortex.
Take care.
Thanks for listening.
