The Wisdom of Trauma (Film) Resource Page

The Wisdom of Trauma is directed by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo who founded Science and Nonduality; read about their mission and perspective. 

The film largely focuses on the work of Gabor Maté. Dr. Maté, a medical doctor, is an international expert on addiction, stress, and childhood development; here is a list of his books.  One of his most significant contributions is the concept and practice of Compassionate Inquiry. 

Notes and Quotes:

• “Trauma” comes from the Greek word for “wound,” literally a physical wound; in the 1890s it starts to mean psychic wound;
• Gabor often emphasizes that trauma is the unhealed place that creates a sense of disconnection from our authentic self. Dr. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah recently released a book, What Happened to You?, that addresses similar themes.
• A frequently repeated point in the talks is that trauma can happen by action (doing something to a person) or by inaction (not giving a person what they need, especially a child).
• Another recurring theme is that there is wisdom in our trauma, meaning that the responses to invasion and a breach of safety that often bring us shame, inhibit our ability to thrive, and disrupt our relationships were actually a means of situational survival. The fact that trauma survivors survived needs to be acknowledged and celebrated, especially by the survivor. 
• Related to the previous point, I often ask the question: what comes next in the story, the part that is yet to be written?
• Gabor (and many in the film and talks) repeatedly offer their hope that we will create a “trauma-informed society” in law, medicine, education, parenting, (I would add) theology, etc.

The talk ends with a new song by Raffi. 

Resmaa Menakem is a “healer, New York Times best-selling author, and trauma specialist” (from his website).  The conversation focuses on somatic abolitionism, which he defines as “the living, embodied anti-racist practice and cultural building —a way of being in the world. It is a return to the age-old wisdom of human bodies respecting, honoring, and resonating with other human bodies” (also from his website). His latest book is My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2017). He offers a 5-session e-course on Cultural Somatics. He has several articles on the topic on Psychology Today.

Notes and Quotes:

• “Your niceness and your kindness is inadequate to deal with the levels of brutality that me and my people embody every day.”
• “The march of time de-contextualizes trauma. If you never remember what happened, you internalize that what happened …as being a defect in you.”
• Around 00:30 there is a conversation about the 2020 incident in Central Park between Amy Cooper and Christian Cooper. It is a powerful section about the tendency of the white body to normalize the dysregulation that comes in their body when confronted by non-white bodies.
• When white bodies do the work around structural racism, the white body (re)discovers and (re)claims portions of THEIR lost and exiled humanity.

I intentionally linked to Resmaa’s page for his book because he has other resources listed there. I also highly recommend Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma (2020) by Gail Parker; a very helpful study for white bodies and powerful practices. 

Thomas Hübl “integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science” (from his website).  A significant focus for him is the healing of collective trauma. He offers a free series of three videos on the topic and his latest book is titled Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds (2020). In 2016 he founded the Pocket Project with his wife, Israeli artist Yehudit Sasportas, to help foster healing.

Notes and Quotes:

• There is a wisdom that only comes by sitting humbly in a space of an experience or sensation that does not yet make sense, of waiting for that which is hidden or numb to be revealed. 
• Trauma often becomes the societal structures. We often unconsciously form agreements around our trauma and those agreements can become a shared a language. For example, in western democracies, we emphasize and “language” the individual over, and often against, the collective. Indigenous and earth-centered cultures often have a different view. 
• “We are not ‘on the planet.’ We are the planet. Your body is the substance of the soil. …if we see ourselves as separate, we are already in a trauma symptom.”
• We often do not create enough silence in our lives to listen to the wisdom that is always arriving out of silence and stillness from Spirit, our ancestors, and the planet. 

While not mentioned in the talk, I’m very eager to read the forthcoming book Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief (2021) by Michelle Cassandra Johnson.

The Polyvagal Theory (PVT) was introduced at a conference in Atlanta in 1994 by Stephen W. Porges. Porges is often quick to note that he is neither a medical doctor nor therapist, but many therapists have integrated his work into their practice; Deb Dana is one of the most impactful. Dana (2018) describes the theory as “the science of safety—the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living.”

I define spirituality as “the felt sense of safe and nurturing connections with one’s Self, others, Spirit, and the planet.” PVT significantly contributes to the science of my model of trauma-informed spiritual direction. Dana (2018) succinctly states: “trauma compromises our ability to engage with others by replacing patterns of connection with patterns of protection.” I would add, and she would likely affirm, trauma also replaces the patterns of connection with Self, Spirit and planet with patterns of protection. Trauma-informed spiritual direction attempts to establish, cultivate, and/or restore those connections.

Towards the end of the Talk, Porges humbly acknowledges that PVT builds upon ancient Wisdom that indigenous and earth-honoring cultures have known for millennia, especially certain lineages of yoga. “This is translation work, not the discovery of new information;” it is frequently an integration of the language of modern neuroscience and what sages, saints, and shamans have already known. This is a perspective shared by my model of trauma-informed spiritual direction. 

A few concepts from PVT that might make the Trauma Talk more accessible if you are new to the theory. These are definitions taken from the Glossary of Porges’ 2017 book:

• Attachment: “a psychological construct reflecting a strong emotional bond between two individuals…”
• Biological imperative: “the needs of living organisms required to perpetuate their existence.”
• Co-regulation: “the mutual regulation of physiological state between individuals.”
• Dissociation: “a process of losing a sense of presence resulting in experiencing a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, and actions.”
• Neural exercise: “exercises that provide opportunities to optimize the regulation of physiological state.”
• Neuroception: “the process through which the nervous system evaluates risk without requiring awareness.”
• Self-regulation: “an individual’s ability to regulate their own behavior without the aid of another person.”

Notes and Quotes:

• The PVT explores the evolutionary journey from an asocial reptile to a social mammal. Trauma theorists and therapists often site the “triune brain model” of the human brain (here’s a really helpful infographic). In brief, we have a highly reactive, options-limited area of our brain (reptilian), a mammalian area that brings in feelings, and the primate/human brain (cortex) that increases our need for safe connection and attachment;
• 00:25 "Safety is more than just the absence of threat, it is the presence of connection. Removal of threat is not sufficient." Mammals have a biological imperative to connect; we have to co-regulate in order to survive and thrive. Safe and connected play is a “neural exercise.” 
• When our bodies are no longer in a state of stress, what are the emergent properties? A question I sometimes ask: if you were not afraid/less afraid, what might become available to you (actions, resources, etc.)? But the key, according to PVT, is that we must feel safe in our bodies first. No safety, no connection. 
• Self-regulation and co-regulation often do a delicate dance. We need to self-regulate in order to co-regulate; however, someone who stays self-regulated when we are dysregulated can, by skillful witnessing and empathy, help bring us back into self-regulation. "Being told to self-regulate without the resources and support is impossible and frustrating."
• Lengthening the exhale is an excellent way of assisting self-regulation and creating a sense of calm in our nervous system. We can do it intentionally or through other activities like singing or playing a wind instrument.

HELPFUL BOOKS 

Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory (Dana, 2021)

Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection (Dana, 2020)

Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Dana, 2018)

The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe (Porges, 2017)

Fritzi Horstman took the pain and trauma from her own Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and alchemized it into the Compassionate Prison Project (CPP). Using “techniques such as mindfulness, meditation and the power of intention,” CPP explores childhood trauma and the impact it has had on the lives of those incarcerated.  the goal is a restored sense of self-compassion and connection to community. There is a lot on her website: learn about ACE, two documentaries (clips appear in The Wisdom of Trauma), a podcast (video interviews of Bessel van der Kolk, Bruce Perry, and several others), and a generosity of other resources.

Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia has an impressive bio (click the link) in working for criminal justice reform. Dr. Jones Tapia is the former Warden of the Cook County Jail; “on any given day, Cook County Jail is home to 2000-2500 inmates with mental illness. In an effort to slow the revolving door of mentally ill individuals re-entering the jail, (she) developed the Mental Health Transition Center to build a support system for the successful reentry into the community.” Here is a short YouTube video (2021, <00:03) of her speaking on the importance of trauma-informed systems, a second (2020, 00:05) of her telling her story, and her 40 Under 40 award by Crain’s Chicago Business. She is the Managing Director of Justice Initiatives with Chicago Beyond.

Notes and Quotes:

• “Stop indicting people, indict the system.” 95% of the people living in prison will be released one day. “We create institutionalized, traumatized people.” 
• “When you give traumatized people power over other traumatized people, the results are often horrific.” 
• “We are not our worst behavior.” Or even our most devastating choice.

Throughout this Talk, I kept thinking of the book The Buddha and the Terrorist by Satish Kumar. It’s an excellent “Buddha story” on forgiveness and the Four Noble Truths on suffering.

Dr. Gina Perez-Baron is a medical doctor who developed the Alchemy Integrated Medicine approach to addiction. She currently works at Seattle Indian Health Board.

Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe) “is a Diné (Navajo) mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker” (from her website). She writes a blog, here’s a video (2020, 3 minutes) from Spiritual Directors International, and another on The Indigenous Paradigm (2021, 2 minutes) hosted by Science and Nonduality.

Daniel “RYNO” Herrera (RYNO: Rewire Yourself with New Opportunities) has an amazing story. He is a Wisdom Council member of Taos Initiative for Life Together, which is “an incubator for personal & systemic change bubbling up in Taos, NM. Loosely-affiliated individuals across Taos County come together in common cause, seeking a Just Transition to an earth-honoring, people-dignifying, place-based, empire-defying, Spirit-following, despair-erasing Way of life” (from their website). Their podcast is Path To Restoration.

Notes and Quotes:

• Daniel: tells a powerful story about his journey! “When one forgets, the others remind.” Culture has the power to cure.
• Gina: “What my mother could not heal, she passed on… there is a quiet, peaceful place where trauma never touched… you survived!  All the adaptive behaviors were survival techniques that kept you alive. This is not your ‘fault,’ but it is our responsibility because what we do not heal, we pass along… the opposite of addiction is attachment…addiction is a rational response to unbearable pain…relapse is a part of recovery.”
• Pat: “I’m trying to make a bridge between the modern paradigm and earth-based paradigm…humanity as a traumatized species, spread over generations… we (her community) have a radical love affair with earth. … but we have lost knowledge, language, and ways of relating to Mother Earth… your joy matters!… If I don’t heal, I will complete the genocide.”

Toward the end of their Talk, they mention Maija West. Here is her website, Healing and Reconciliation Institute, and her reflection on the events in Washington, DC, on 6 January 2021.

In this episode, and in others, there are references to the recently discovered graves of Indigenous children in Canada. Here are two links from NPR: one, two.

Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D., “is an expert in the field of child and adult attachment theory as well as trauma resolution…Diane developed her signature series on adult attachment called DARe (Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning experience) which is also internationally recognized as SATe (Somatic Attachment Training experience). Her work with adult attachment has forged a path for adults with childhood attachment injuries to develop Secure Attachment Skills (SAS) that lead to more connected and fulfilling adult relationships” (from her website).

“Attachment” refers to the emotional bonds we have with people. Here is an article on attachment theory, another from Psychology Today, and Diane’s page with with an Attachment Style Quiz. Our attachment style is believed to have significant impact on our adult relationships.

Notes and Quotes:

• “We have this inherent capacity to heal and trauma can be an incredible catalyst for us to actually grow and mature if we have the right help in moving through it…unresolved trauma can take us to the darkest places humans can go.” I wrote a post on Redemptive Empathy and post-traumatic growth that might be helpful.
• Quote credited to George Gurdjieff: “the best time to do spiritual work is when the planet is in great turmoil.” While I did not find the quote from Gurdjieff, I certainly believe there is truth to this idea; but be careful and cautious of stretching the truth of the notion too far. Frequently my centering words during the pandemic as I lived in India was “surrender and survive:” do what I can (safety protocols and spiritual practices), but surrender to the story as it unfolds; survive (in all areas of my life).  
• “Connection is what regulates us. We have a prosocial brain, our nervous systems are primed for connection; healthy connection solves so many problems.”
• There is a good discussion of “repair” when we misattune in relationships. This is part of the work of forgiveness, one of the most powerful spiritual antidotes available to us.
• There is a reference to the book The Trauma of Everyday Life by Mark Epstein, a Buddhist psychiatrist. 
• A really important point is made several times, especially towards the end: if we did not have secure attachment when we were children, we often do not somatically know in our bodies what that feels like and it can be threatening when offered. Building a sense of safety and connection is often very slow work; staying inside our Window of Tolerance and working in the margins of the Threshold of Transformation is important. 

Several times during this Talk, I thought of Barbara Brown Taylor’s powerful book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. It is not a book about attachment, but it does invite a consideration of what we miss when we are afraid of the shadows.

Esther Perel is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have translated into over 30 languages; her TED Talks have been viewed more than 30 million times. She’s been a psychotherapist in New York City for more than 35 years and currently has two podcasts. She provocatively posits that: “Eroticism is not sex per se, but the qualities of vitality, curiosity, and spontaneity that make us feel alive.”

Notes and Quotes:

• "There are very few things outside of sex that we are taught to be so silent about that we are then expected to be so fluent.” 
• ”Tell me how you were loved, and I will tell you how you make love.”
• “Trauma is when we get too much of something or too little of something.” This idea is affirmed in several different Talks. We often think of trauma as an invasion and violation of our agency (ability to make our own choices), but trauma can also be the withholding or withdrawal of something that we need (e.g. comfort and support). Sexual play is a means that we can regain some sense of agency.
• About 80% of sexual violations come at the hands of those we know and were suppose to be able to trust. 
• From start to finish, there are skillful discussions about the “spirituality of sexuality" in this Talk.

There is a lot more content than I included here, but these were some of my favorite points. 

While I have not listened to her music for a few years, the offerings of Alanis Morissette have definitely been important nourishment during periods of my pilgrim journey. Her music is authentic and often raw; I appreciate her heart-open vulnerability about her relationship with depression and eating disorders. Her podcast, Conversation with Alanis Morissette, “features conversations with different highly reputable teachers, authors and leaders from different philosophies and of different psychological/neurobiological/developmental models and backgrounds, all with an eye toward healing and wholeness and recovery” (from her website); it’s a good resource.

This Talk frequently references Internal Family Systems (IFS). IFS was developed by Richard C. Schwartz; Alanis wrote the forward to Schwartz’s recent book, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model (2021). Key to the theory is that “the mind is naturally multiple and that is a good thing.  Our inner parts contain valuable qualities and our core Self knows how to heal, allowing us to become integrated and whole. In IFS all parts are welcome” (from the IFS website). The goal in IFS is to invite the parts to release their burdens. It’s a journey of transformation and integral part of my model of trauma-informed spiritual direction. I often say that all the parts of me must have a “seat on the bus,” but I remain mindful of which part is driving the bus (my life). Susan McConnell recently published a book, Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy: Awareness, Breath, Resonance, Movement, and Touch in Practice (2020); it brings the body and breath more thoroughly into the conversation. 

There is also a reference to the childhood of the Buddha; I think it’s an important part of understanding him and Buddhism. You can find a version of it here.

Finally, there is also a reference to alloparenting.  Alloparenting is simply caregiving of the young by someone other than the parents; it also happens in many non-human species. Here’s an interesting article on The Neurobiological Causes and Effects of Alloparenting (2017).

Notes and Quotes:

• There is a good conversation centered around the challenges of having compassion for ourselves when there has been a rupture within the Self, the core of who we are. I kept thinking of the discussion with Diane Poole Heller who raised the tender challenge for those who have never felt secure attachment of being able to accept it when it is offered.
• I loved Alanis’ definition of mindfulness: “some awareness that is brought into the movie that is my life …bringing Self and presence …bringing searing presence into what is without the need to fix it or ‘solution-ize,’ it or change anything about it.”
• I also loved her quote to live “a life that is permeated by inquiry.” In my model of trauma-informed spiritual direction, I call it “contemplative curiosity” and heart courageous compassion of turning toward what is uncomfortable.

For a long time, Alanis’ heart-pleading, soul-touching song “That I Would Be Good” was important music therapy for me. Here’s a video of her singing it live (2012, 5 minutes).  I used to include it in the curriculum for teens in Confirmation; it still touches with tears something profound in me.  It reminds me of Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese.”

Peter Levine is one of the most influential theorists in traumatology, and one of my favorite.  I’m an incarnational theologian; I deeply believe in the fleshiness of experience, existence, and Spirit. Peter has brought enfleshment into the treatment and release of trauma. 

Peter tells the story that “in 1978 I met Stephen Porges and we shared a passion for bottom-up processing (body first, then brain) and emergent properties. My relationship with Porges and this prescient dream heavily influenced the development of Somatic Experiencing®. Over the past 50 years, I developed SE™ and then taught it to anyone who would listen…” (from his website, alt.; italics are my addition).

Here is the website for Somatic Experiencing International and a helpful SE 101 page; they are very generous with resources, including an incredible page of Anti-Oppression Resources.

Here is the Amazon page of Peter’s books, an excellent interview with him, and his podcast episode (6 March 2020, 0:45:00) from one of my favorite podcasts, Being Well with Rick and Forrest Hanson (father and son).

Notes and Quotes:

• “Addiction is as complex as human behavior is…one treatment does not work for all.” This is such an important point about trauma in general: there is no “one-size” healing approach. In fact, what worked in your work yesterday, might not be effective today. Contemplative curiosity about the experience you are actually having is so very important. 
• Gabor: “addiction is about self-regulation, people are trying to get to a more manageable state…”
• 00:13:Peter tells the signature Waking the Tiger story of “Nancy” from Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997). He often tells this story as the moment of his transformation.
• A “top down” approach to therapy focuses mostly on “the head,” what we think, the stories we tell, getting a story “told,” etc. A “bottom up” approach starts with the sensations and experiences of the body. Both are important, but top down is usually overemphasized. 
• 00:20: Gabor and Peter (blended quote): Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside of you; it’s not the external event, but an internal response. …trauma is the disconnect from ourselves. …trauma is what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic, present person.
• Peter: “Trauma disconnects us from ourselves because it would be too painful to feel so small.”
• 00:25: Peter tells of his experience of being hit by a car, a story he unpacks in his book In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness.
• )0:29:  Long and powerful story from Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.  
• There is a reference to Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma (2014) and to a recently released book from Bruce D. Perry and Oprah, What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing (2021). Both books have been helpful to me.

This Talk feels like a conversation between two good friends; that brings a tender strength to the presentation, and also keeps it from gaining a strong sense of focus. Here’s a video from another SAND event of Peter and Thomas Hübl on the topic Healing Trauma and Spiritual Growth (2019, 0:56:00); Peter has a lot of great videos on YouTube. 

This is one of my favorite Trauma Talks; it’s like a dense master class from people who truly care about each other and have profound insights, wisdom, experience, and knowledge about how to be well, both individually and collectively. There is so much here and my long summary give only a small sampling.

Dr. Sará King “is a UCLA-trained neuroscientist, political and learning scientist, critical theorist, medical anthropologist, social entrepreneur, public speaker, and certified yoga and meditation instructor” (from her website). Her consulting firm, MindHeart, centers “the neuroscience of well-being at the service of social justice” (from her website). She also writes a blog and is a fellow at the Garrison Institute (see below).

Dr. Angel Acosta “works to bridge the fields of leadership, social justice & mindfulness…(he is) a proud first-generation Dominican-American and graduate of SUNY Plattsburgh… He currently is the Director of the Garrison Institute's Fellowship Program” (from his website). “The Garrison Institute was founded on the belief that action in the world is more compassionate and more effective when infused with the wisdom and skill cultivated in contemplative practices” (from their website, which has lots of resources). Angel has a podcast and many other offerings on his website.

Dr. Daniel Siegel “is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA (and) the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization that focuses on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes” (from his website, alt.). He has numerous books, including many on child development and parenting. 

Notes and Quotes:

• Dan: “the brain continues to grow throughout the lifespan…let’s look at what happened, because there is something we can do about it…many of those things we call psychiatric disorders are either chaos, rigidity, or both that are another way of looking at human suffering.” 
• John A. Powell is mentioned several times in the Talk. He “is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute that brings together scholars, community advocates, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society and to create transformative change toward a more equitable world” (from their website). Here is an interview (2018, 0:52:00) from On Being with Krista Tippet. 
• Sará: Tenderly relates how her mother beat her and “how this process gets passed down from nervous system, to nervous system, to nervous system … it is the embodied somatic reality of intergenerational resonance and residue of my family not being treated as human beings.” See also the Talk with Resmaa Menakem. 
• 00:19: Conversation about COVID lessons.
• Angel: “COVID was a memo from Mother Earth … restore a sense of intimacy with the planet itself.” …He quotes the Talk with Thomas Hübl: “I AM the planet!”
• Dan posits 5 concurrent pandemics: the COVID-19 virus, social injustice, misinformation, environmental destruction, and the myth of the solo self as separate. 
• Gabor quotes Dan: “The separate solo self is the lie that is traumatizing us.”
• There is a reference to the film “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of our Planet” (2021) with David Attenborough. There is also the use of the phrase eco-anxiety, a term coined by Glenn Albrecht.
• Here is a paper on “The Science of Awe” (Summer Allen, 2018) published by the Greater Good Science Center (lots of resources on their website).
• Sará: “Justice is not about punishment, it is not about retribution, it is not about canceling each other and tearing each other down, and sure isn’t about being right. I want to orient justice around awareness…justice, to me, is loving awareness in action.”  
• The healing balm of “proximity” was raised from Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2015) by Bryan Stevenson (here’s his TED Talk page).
• Cornel West is twice quoted at the end:
  • “Justice is what love looks like on the streets.” (Dan)
  • “The condition for truth is to allow suffering to speak.” (Angel)

The Talk ends with Gabor quoting Anne Frank (in her diary a few months before her death): “It’s in difficult times like these that ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder that I have not abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” 

This is an honest and mutually vulnerable conversation between Gabor and the artist Sia. At one tender moment, she acknowledged that ”I always felt I wasn’t made for this planet.” There are frank discussions on addiction, suicidal ideation, and attachment challenges.

Notes and Quotes:

• Several times George Haas is mentioned. George founded Mettagroup, which “uses Vipassanā, or insight meditation, as a way to help students live a meaningful life. Drawing from 2500-year-old Buddhist teachings and John Bowlby's Attachment Theory, the Mettagroup techniques serve as a model of how to connect with other people, and how to be completely yourself in relationships with others and with work” (from his website).
• “SLAA” is mentioned in passing. SLAA is “Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous,” a 12-step program. 
• Gabor mentions Thomas Merton’s autobiographical reflections, The Seven Storey Mountain. Merton was a Trappist monk and peace activist; I sometimes playfully think of him as Christianity’s Thich Nhat Hanh. 
• There is such a weave of tenderness throughout the conversation. At 00:27 there is a discussion of parenting and at 00:43, Sia discusses her experiences with liposuction.
• Sia: “I was ‘spoused’ by both my parents…and I abandoned my own needs so that I would not be abandoned by someone else.” Gabor responds by suggesting that self-abandonment as children to take care of the supposed caregivers is a survival technique to keep the relationship going, without which a child could not survive. 
• Attachment Resources: see the Talk with Diane Poole Heller. Here is her Attachment Styles Test.

I have a felt sense of Sia’s truth that “twenty minutes of co-regulation” with another person can help you feel sane again, can interrupt self-harm and dysregulation, and can keep us from acting out. It takes what I call contemplative curiosity, a slowing down, noticing what “shows up and is,” and stillness from which Wisdom can speak. It takes safe and nurturing connections with Self, others, Spirit, and the planet. And it takes compassion, an open-hearted courage to turn toward the suffering of others and our own. It’s slow and difficult work, but it is the way “home.” 

This brief talk focuses on research being done by Rick Doblin and others at Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). According to their website, they were “founded in 1986 [and are] a 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational organization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.”

There is a reference to a recently published New York Times article (3 May 2021)on their progress toward legalization of MDMA for PTSD.

Marcella made a beautiful and powerful comment on the recovery from trauma, that it is like “coming home to a part of yourself that you have been homesick for.”

Stanislav Grof is a Czechoslovakian born and trained psychiatrist with a particular interest in “non-ordinary states of consciousness.” He coined the term “holotropic,” meaning “moving toward wholeness.” He is the founder of Holotropic Breathwork. 

Notes and Quotes:

• Comments on some of his quotes:
  • We are not “namarupa” (a Sanskrit word indicating “name” and “form” found in both Hinduism and Buddhism). We are ātman. Ātman (Sanskrit for “self” or “breath”) is the core essence of who we are. A fundamental affirmation of Hinduism is: “ātman is brahman,” your core essence is divine; the individual soul is part of the cosmic soul. Swami Muktananda (Siddha Yoga) use to say: “God dwells in you as you.” The Upanishads, sacred texts in Hinduism, in response to the question “who am I, who are we” famously responds with: “Tat Tvam Asi” (“Thou Art That”); your true nature is divine.
  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: was a French paleontologist and Jesuit priest. He combined Christian theology and modern science; he was scolded by his Order and warned by the Vatican. The quote attributed to him, “we are not human being having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience,” while often credited to Chardin, it has a “disputed” origin.
  • Grof quotes Allan Watts as saying, “we are really not just skin-encapsulated egos;” you can find the longer citation here. Charles Eisenstein wrote: “we are not just a skin-encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are each other and we are the world.”
• Author and book mentioned: Fritjof Capra,who wrote The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (2010)
• Author and book mentioned: Rupert Sheldrake, who wrote New Science of Life (2005).

While I found the Talk interesting, I did not find it the most germane to the topic of trauma.

V (formerly Eve Ensler) “is a Tony Award-winning playwright, activist, performer, and author of the Obie award-winning theatrical phenomenon The Vagina Monologues, published in over 48 languages, performed in over 140 countries, and was recently heralded by The New York Times as one of the most important plays of the past 25 years” (from her website). You can find a list of her plays here. She is a prolific writer, but two books are mentioned in the Talk: The Apology (2019) and In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection (2014). She has several incredible social justice and activism projects around the world.

In a powerful article “‘It's Time for White Women to Listen’: Writers V and Aja Monet on What will Replace The Vagina Monologues", Arifa Akbar writes in The Guardian, “she is no longer Eve Ensler, not since writing her memoir, The Apology, which excavated the dead father who violently abused her throughout her childhood. She is now V, joyously freed from the last vestige of that prescribed paternal identity.”

Notes and Quotes:

• V: “Trauma takes you away from community, it makes you feel isolated and wrong.” 
• There is a reference to a Harvard study: PTSD linked to increased risk of ovarian cancer.
• V: “If something doesn’t exist, you can do anything to it. If something only exists in the dark, you can rape it. You can colonize it. You can own it. You can destroy it. You can do whatever you want.” 
• There is a brief mention of an article (“Disaster Patriarchy: How the Pandemic has Unleashed a War on Women”) that V wrote for The Guardian (1 June 2021).
• 00:32 During a continuing conversation about patriarchy, V gives a helpful example: “privilege for men is such a given”…imagine wanting to take a walk at night by yourself…”even the thought that you cannot do that [as a woman] limits already the radius of your existence, limits the boundaries of your existence, determines how big you will be, how small you will be…”
• Betty Dodson, “artist, author, and PhD sexologist [who] has been one of the principal voices for women's sexual pleasure and health for over four decades” got a shout out in the Talk (quote from her website).
• V mentions an event she did with Andrew Harvey, The Revolution of the Mother.
• My favorite quote: V: “Can we love each other enough to do this?”

Multiple times during this talk, I thought of Suzanne Simard’s recently released brilliant work, Finding the Mother Tree.   

Here’s a post I wrote about it.

This Talk features five women from the film in conversation (Gabor joins at the end). They primarily focus on two questions.

What have you learned, what is the Wisdom of trauma in your lives?

Rae: There was too much attention on me by my parents, I felt responsible for how they felt…”the truth is our friend.”

Tessa: Gabor asked her, “what are you running from?”…”my history of addiction was reaching for the outside to fill up the inside.”

Romie: “…through me finding my authenticity I form more meaningful relationships with not only individuals I work with, but within my life.”

Juthaporn: Tells a powerful story of coming to terms that she has PTSD. She references EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing); it is a type of trauma treatment…”I can make all these excuses, but at the end of the day, I’m still going to feel what I feel.”

Fritzi: see her previous Talk. She talks about nonduality, which essentially dissolves our separateness…“For me, when I learned that I was traumatized, the biggest (awakening) for me was learning I wasn’t my behavior. What I was told, what I told myself that I am, is not true.” She playfully calls Starbucks a trauma center.

Reflections on being a parent

Romie: her baby is 8 months old…she will help to normalize and name feeling states for her daughter…allow her daughter the agency of choice.

Juthaporn: has a 6 year old…being accountable to our children for the pain we have caused….mindful parenting as a remedy. 

Fritzi: has a 14 year old son…separating “behavior” from “identity.”…trauma separates, but connection heals.

Rae: mentions an interview that got cut out of the film…”my kids suffered because of my fear of rejection from my husband.”…”I don’t want my children responsible for me in any way, they’re not. And we put that burden on our kids…’Don’t make me feel like a bad mother, I can’t handle that.’” 

Tessa: she has step-children…makes the point that as we heal ourselves, we heal our children…”make sure you do your own work.”