Leçon 1
Basic Understanding of Trauma
People are stressed and suffering. Anxiety and depression are rising. Many people have lost the juiciness and joy of life. It is clear that our defensive strategies of fight/flight/freeze from childhood are no longer working. As adults, we have the capacity and skill to change.
The Stillpoint Method of healing trauma is rooted in neuroscience and yoga meditation. The effect of abuse, hurt and emotional neglect on children is called Developmental Trauma because it affects our developing brain and nervous system. This limits our ability to make and sustain healthy connections and relationships.
We finish this session with a 2 minute practice of relaxing the forehead to release worry.
Leçon 2
Emergency Practices for Grounding and Orienting
The health and resilience of our nervous system impacts every moment of our life. It determines our level of trust and feelings of physical and emotional safety.
We all get unsettled and disturbed at times. We feel anxious, enraged, or like we're going to have a panic attack. Catastrophic thinking holds us in a trance. To heal from trauma, we need to strengthen our ability to come out of the past or future, and be grounded in the safety of this present moment.
This session blends yoga meditation with neuroscience. Learn and practice several powerful tools for emotional self-regulation: 5 4 3 2 1 senses; box breathing; holding your own hand, and talking in longer sentences in a meeting; Qi Gong practice of shaking the tree, etc.
Leçon 3
How To Stop Torturing Yourself With Your Thoughts
Thoughts are words we hear or see, and images we see (colors and shapes). The content is based on our life experiences. We relax and enjoy memories of a beautiful sunset or being with someone we love.
Compelling and catastrophic thoughts generated by a hypervigilant nervous system cause distress. We learn about 3 main types of thoughts and how to witness our thoughts.
This session is packed with tools like trance tapping, tracing, focus shifting to break the trance of ruminating and worse-case scenario thinking.
Leçon 4
Feelings, Sensations and Energy in Our Body
We store trauma in our body along with associated memories. We heal trauma somatically, in and through our body. This session is an opportunity to become familiar with sensations in your body and listen to know why this feeling is here. Energy is not here to hurt us. It is here to protect or warn us. We reach a tipping point where we are no longer afraid of the energy in our body. We are able to welcome everything that is here.
Leçon 5
Protective Mechanism: Anger and Lashing Out
This is a guided somatic inquiry into feeling anger. Feel free to pause the recording and spend more time with some parts of the inquiry.
One of the ways we defend ourselves is through the fight response. We lash out verbally with cutting remarks or sometimes are also physically violent. People whose primary trauma response is anger or rage understandably have more trouble with relationships.
When we are emotionally flooded we feel like we are fighting for our life. Feeling powerless is often what triggers a threat response. Feeling anger is biologically preferable to feeling shame or helplessness. Anger and mobilizing into fight is one of our normal responses to situations where we perceive a threat.
There is a difference between an uncontrolled fight response, feeling anger, and expressing anger.
Leçon 6
Protective Mechanism: Denial, Numbing Out, Addiction
Developmental trauma is the impact of our childhood experiences on the development of our brain and nervous system. One of the major mechanisms to protect ourselves is disconnection. When we are not taken care of and attuned with emotionally, we feel invisible and develop core deficiency beliefs that we are unlovable or bad.
We are able to be open and authentic only when we feel emotionally and physically safe and we are not worried about being judged. Isolation to protect ourselves emotionally doesn’t really work. We finish with a guided practice of "What Does the Heart Know?" to reconnect with ourselves with kindness.
Leçon 7
Shame and Turning Against Ourselves
Shame is meant to create an immediate bad feeling to arrest an action quickly. Ideally, shaming of a behavior is followed quickly by a repair and connection, but often we feel shamed for who we are, and not for a behavior that we can change. We pressure ourselves through a mean inner critic who never lets up. We try to be perfect to be included and accepted. Is the shaming appropriate to the situation? Would you shame a good friend the way you turn against yourself? Awareness is the first step to heal this pattern of suffering and cultivate a kinder connection.
Leçon 8
Compassion and Kindness
Why are we not kind to ourselves? We can be compassionate with strangers, but we can’t give ourselves a break. The reasons for this stem back to childhood and our strategies for survival. If we were the one who was broken or defective, we had hope for change. We could keep trying to fix ourselves and finally be safe.
This guided somatic practice explores cultivating kindness and compassion as we more deeply know and accept who we are.
Leçon 9
Relationships
Connecting with ourselves is the prerequisite to authentic and vulnerable connection with others. Without it, we are almost untouched by someone’s love and affection. One barrier is our false core deficiency beliefs of being unlovable. Another is a nervous system response of fight/flight/freeze. We are not available.
Each section of this ten day course has been nurturing a connection with ourselves. We understand what caused the disconnection and how the inner critic developed. As we heal and release trauma, our inner experience changes. We become more patient and kind internally, and it is safer to connect more easily and authentically with others.
Leçon 10
Resilience and Strength
Bring to mind one of your strengths, like curiosity, optimism, steadfastness, loyalty, or love of learning. Remember a time you used that strength and imagine it vividly using all your senses. Who was there? What was going on? What existing strengths could you bring to the situation you are in now? Bring that scenario vividly to life.
In the past we may have made it through by dissociating, shutting down, or getting angry. This time we are practicing mindfulness. We cultivate curiosity and kindness towards ourselves.
