My nervous system saw my mother and COVID-19 as the same danger...
The relief of moving to a new home was short lived: the daily intrusion of construction noise was replaced by a night-time insinuation of bathroom mould.
My nervous system literally went into lockdown to defend itself.
While I slept, mould spores attempted to invade my orifices. It was not just my sinuses under pressure – my ears, cheekbones, jawbone, occipital bone, the muscles in my neck, shoulders and back all refused entry to the unwelcome nocturnal visitor and attempted to mobilise a defensive position.
Barely three weeks in my new abode, the damage was not the mould itself; rather, the harm was being stealthily enacted upon my nervous system by my own dysregulated nervous system. Making a boundary to lock out the mould was destroying my mental equilibrium and creating high levels of pain in my body.
Other things in my environment were asking me to notice the issue of boundaries. A nest of ants sheltered in my kitchen temporarily because the afternoon sun was blazing on their home. Twenty-four hours later, the ants retreated as mysteriously as they had arrived. The next day I found an upturned cockroach on my floor.
Then my mother came to visit, and made a confusing comment about the naturopathic medicine I have in my cupboard. When I explained that her comment was hurtful because it was uninformed and inappropriate…she responded by telling me how much I hurt her when I told her that. She let me know that if I wanted a relationship with her, I could not correct her behaviour…otherwise she would retreat to lick her wounds – and blame me for causing her to feel unsafe.
In this example, we could exchange “mother’ or “mould” for “COVID-19” and we would still be describing an unseen enemy that insinuates itself when we're vulnerable, creates a fear response in our nervous system, and triggers a need to protect ourselves through a primal impulse.
For some people, fear triggers their flight response (retreat, withdrawal). For others, they will feel resigned, numb, or make themselves invisible or small (freeze response). Some, like my mother, will withdraw (flight) and then attack (fight) – effectively, a disorganised assault intended to confuse and disarm the enemy. Others will follow their impulse to push the intruders away, and make their bodies big, strong, stiff and tense to scare the enemy.
But how do you scare away a virus or a pathogen?
You can’t pick it up in your teeth and shake it like a terrier does with a rat. When our innate self-protective responses can’t complete, this sends a resonant message of helplessness to our nervous system, resulting in eventual collapse.
This means that even the people whose nervous systems naturally mobilise to fight an invisible enemy will eventually join those in freeze. Whole communities in nervous system freeze silently signal a very vulnerable position to the human collective nervous system that is evolutionarily unsustainable. The survival of our species relies upon a critical mass being able to mobilise and fight.
This is why people have reported vast fluctuations of nervous system responses to the lockdown situation, and to the pandemic more generally. No-one should be expected to have one homogeneous, predictable response.
When people are traumatised, their nervous system naturally swings from energised to exhausted, from mobilisation to inactivity, from outrage to collapse, from compliance to protest.
That doesn’t make them inconsistent; rather, it makes them reliably - but vulnerably - human.
Taking a body-oriented approach is the most effective way of helping clients become aware of their boundaries and become more assertive in relationships. In sessions, I help clients construct a physical representation of their boundary with a ball of wool or yarn.
In this video, you can follow along with the exercise and explore the felt sensation of your own boundaries.
Thinking about the vulnerability of being human leads me to think about the Dalai Lama – from whom I received a spontaneous initiation in India in 2006.
During the initiation, I slipped into an altered state of consciousness and had a vision of my exposed brain wiped clean with a sponge dipped in a solution of bleach. My body jolted upright, straight and strangely alert for my altered state. Afterwards I was left with a very visceral experience of knowing ‘everything’ - in every sense and on every level - for about 45 seconds.
It was 45 seconds of extreme profundity – an unexpected blessing that I’ll never forget.
Buddhism often speaks of the blessing of a ‘precious’ human birth. Human life is precious because we can free ourselves by turning inwards, examining our own consciousness, and choosing to awaken to the illusory nature of our minds. I find this easiest to comprehend when I contemplate the impermanence of my body and bodily experience and cultivate non-attachment to my Divine nature as my identity.
In my trauma informed counseling group program for healers and neuro-sensitives, I teach methods to eliminate overwhelm and rewire patterns of protection, banish procrastination and self-sabotage and metabolize trauma that's holding back neurodivergent practitioners from thriving. All set within a safe container of shamanic wisdom practices.
Read more about the nervous system and how to heal a dysregulated nervous system here.
Expansion Training for Healers is a 10-week group program for just 12 healers and neuro-sensitives - with plenty of individual support.
Doors are now open for the next round of Expansion Training for Healers, starting Tuesday 9th May, 2023.
If you're curious how healing and expanding your nervous system can help you, book a co-regulation call to explore whether this trauma-informed training is for you.