Unfrozen (guest post by talk doctor Fran Burke)
August 8, 2008
The body never forgets. I’ve a story: a true and unfrozen story. Hopefully by sharing it will help shed a little light on trauma and how we carry it locked away in our bodies, frozen in time – neither visual or verbalized; rather, emotionally frozen, snapped in the body until triggered and ready to be released.
Trauma was frozen in my perpetual body motion; my life. What a hypocrite I am. How I can relate to my clients while I’m like this? How can I stay with my frozen trauma but not allow it to take over? Stop the head talk Fran. I’m not a hypocrite. I am a person affected by an old trauma. I cope and I heal by knowing my feelings, by investigating their cause and by allowing their strength to make me strong and emotionally healthy.
Many years ago I was a witness to a shocking event, not the victim you understand, just the observer. Something has recently triggered that frozen emotional memory. I’m not sure what exactly; I just have an amazing sadness and an anxiety to go with it.
Around a week ago I began to feel a sadness. I awoke crying, with no memory of what my mind had been playing during sleep. During the day, I just wanted to cry.
“What’s happening,” I voiced to my partner in a search for answers.
“The sad news about my Aunt?” he kindly offered.
I knew it was not that. It was something else: an old, yet distant feeling of great sadness.
“Depression?” No! I am not depressed.
“Menopause?” Yes, I could blame it on menopause, old age or maybe even being crazy.
“Eczema?” Yes, my skin is covered in a rash and I have been feeling terrible (regrettably my partner had been at the end of my frustration re my skin problem). But, the sadness is not rash related: a saint would be pissed off, anyone would be anxious, it’s driving me nuts, but no, that is not it!! I just know that’s not it. God, I began to think I had lost it!
The sadness was not overwhelming; life went on, and it was always just there. I acknowledged the feeling and hoped that it was not a premonition of something that was going to happen. I decided to stop my mind from going there, into stinkin’ thinkin’ mode!
I sat before retiring most nights, reflecting on a few things that make me sad and trying to listen to what I was not hearing in my head.
The loss of my mum? The injustices of this planet? I knew they were not what was bubbling the sadness. I had no idea what it was and I figured it was most probably that I was disappointed with myself because I had been smoking and procrastinating. While I knew these were coping strategies for other stress, I had to stop beating myself up and just go with the flow of feeling sad. No need to be sad about smoking and procrastinating because there was something more important to be sad about….I just didn’t know what!
The feeling of sadness did not go away. It was not a gloom and doom or depression sadness. This was something different: something deep that I couldn’t reach to shift it.
I practiced meditation and self hypnosis to focus on the feeling, rather than my cognitive process of trying to work out what was happening. Doing this gave my self permission to feel, and to stay out of my head. I wanted to understand the feeling of course, but the fact that it wasn’t letting me understand it, tipped me off to instead deeply feel it.
I decided to practice what I preach in the counselling room; to ground myself and stop the head talk: you know, feel the feelings not think the thoughts.
A couple of nights later I awoke and realised that I again had tears rolling down my cheeks, with no memory of what my dream sleep had been about. The next morning I felt heavy and that sad feeling was high: alive and vicious.
I telephoned my sister for her 60th birthday, had a chat, and said how I was looking forward to being with her and my other sister on the weekend to celebrate. I hung up, and started to cry. The tears just rolled. I let them. I had no idea of why I was crying but I figured, let it come: a good cry never hurt anyone!!. At the same time though, my head talk was mean: What the hell is happening to you? What is this about? Get it together woman, you’ve got tax returns to do!
I focused and things returned to normal. I had phone call from an old girlfriend who I hadn’t heard from for a while. We had a great natter and talked about the upcoming 60th birthday celebration. During the day the sadness returned, threefold, and I shed more tears. I refused to sit in the sadness and again refocused on a complicated cognitive task: a technological task. The head talk started. “You’re dumb,” it growled when I couldn’t work the technology.
I was feeling nicely sorry for myself by dinner time! A counselling friend telephoned in the evening; she asked if I was okay. Ever stoic, I said yes … “NO!” was the next answer and I was a blubbering mess!! I was so embarrassed knowing within myself I was okay but also knowing something kept jumping up and telling me all was not well. I couldn’t stop the tears and told my friend of the persistent sad feeling. She gave me permission to have the sadness without having a reason for it, we talked briefly about what the sadness felt like in my body and then we focused on her reason for the phone call.
After the phone call, or maybe it was after the last lot of tears, I felt lighter. And then it all fell into place! I finally knew what it was. I cannot pin point when I understood what had been happening or when and how I figured out what the triggers of the sadness were: it just all fell into place later that evening. Triggers! I was being triggered by frozen memory and grief.
It is often said that the body never forgets trauma and that anniversary’s frequently bring back the body feeling without the head understanding what is happening. My body certainly didn’t forget and the trauma I have carried for years was frozen solid – until the thaw of anniversary time set in.
Many years ago, while strolling with a girlfriend, we witnessed a terrible car accident. Five youths from my home town died instantly when their car collided with a semi-trailer. I stood 500 metres away and saw the tragedy unfold from start to finish: a little red Torana was tossed up into the air, turning twice, and landing bonnet down while the semi screeched to a holt into a ditch some further meters down the road.
The accident happened just out of my town, on the bypass highway, 30 years ago. Although I was traumatized and dreadfully sad for those five lives lost, I have never shed a tear - that is until this week. The sadness that was frozen has finally been released. Maybe there will be a few more tears and that’s okay. I now know what I am dealing with.
The universe triggers an “unfreeze” in strange ways. One does possibly need to understand the triggers, but for healing and integration, it all falls into place if you let it and that’s all I need to know right now. If you don’t let it fall into place, you are just refreezing pain on top of pain on top of pain.
In hindsight and at a cognitive level I have now worked out the trigger to my frozen grief and sadness: the other week while watching the news, a terrible car accident was reported. The young daughter escaped without injury but her mother was killed and her two brothers seriously injured.
The sight of it really shook me and I commented to my son at the time that I hoped everyone else would survive. In addition, there have been numerous serious fatalities reported of late and my body and memory has responded to each of them.
The biggest trigger though was my sister’s birthday. In a few days I am going to join my sister to celebrate her 60th birthday: a big occasion. At the time of the accident, all those years ago, that same sister was coming home, for her big 30th birthday celebration. I had to meet her on the morning following the accident, at the bus stop close to the scene of the accident. It was very traumatic.
Just in case I missed the birthday trigger; the phone call from the old friend … she was the friend I was with when we witnessed the tragedy! Thanks Universe, to me you have given an understanding and a thawing of my sadness and grief.
My words of encouragement to others going through frozen and unknown emotion - stay grounded, focused, and let the emotion/body feeling come. Trying not to beat myself up and getting too lost in the pain was not easy…but I did it. I understand how when it is trapped in your body that it is damn hard not to get sucked into a cognitive process. The body never forgets – listen and speak to your body, rather than always listening and speaking to your mind.
Unfrozen by Fran Burke copyright 2008
The respectable addiction: Workaholism
June 21, 2008
My name is Megan Bayliss and I am a workaholic. Once I was proud of this because that is what my world expected of me, and I had developed the disease to please. Now I am ashamed of it and I struggle daily to keep on the straight and narrow. Last night, a kewl little blonde girl, reminded me that life is not all about work and that sometimes “cracking it” is an okay thing to do.
My second marriage failed because of my workaholism (amongst other things). It was common for me to be writing court reports on my lap top, in bed, at 3am. I spent little time with my family and I failed to hear and see the warning signs. I was disconnected from myself, my emotional intelligence and the people closest to me. I was a disaster waiting for a divorce to happen. It did, I crashed and I took two years out to beat my addiction.
I recovered. For years I stood up to the voice of addiction telling me to work harder, work more, work while the sun shines, work while the work is being offered, just work, work, work. One day, in the previous six months, the stronger voice of addiction snuck back in and drowned my ability to stand up to it. My voice of strength gave up and my old addictive patterns of workaholim returned. I have been working ridiculous hours and taking on more that humanly possible for an aging social worker. I have become disconnected from my emotional intelligence and my family.
But….I love work and I love busy. I love it far more than chocolate because I consume work every single minute of my waking day. Chocolate is no good for me, I know that and I have strategies in place to ensure that I do not become an obsessive chocolate eater. Why the hell haven’t I done that with work then if my style of work is more toxic to me than chocolate?! What sort of a dummy am I?
Today is the day that I again face my demons, that I become emotionally intelligent and I stand up to my pre socialised pattern of over working. I want to spend time with my family. I want to play Uno, I want to have time to go to the eco shop and ask about gray water tanks. I want to become the green child protection advocate that I always wanted to be, rather than the over working lefty daughter of a conservative family. My hard work somehow made my left thinking more acceptable. What a load of rubbish, rhetoric and cognitive dissonance to make my addiction appear nice!
I will not work today. It is the weekend! I will play Uno and Switch and maybe even bribe the boys to play Scrabble with me (see, ever the capitalist 
). I will face that which I hate more than Tripe: housework. Imaginif is moving home and office and this one has to be packed and cleaned. In an effort to avoid that which I hate, I easily succumbed to the seductive moves of my old lover; workaholism. Go away workaholism, you may be acceptable in the failing eyesight of a capitalist society, but in my eyesight you are a killer, a perpetrator of child abuse and a part of me that I do not wish to have dominant.
I am stronger than the voice of addiction and the voice of a political ideology that rewards respectable addictions and hides child abuse. I am Megan; a mum, a wife and a lover of the natural environment. I am strong and I am emotionally intelligent.
Thank you to the golden child, Miss J, for helping me to re-perspect “cracking it.” I cracked it last night - I made a decision to stand up to myself and take responsibility for my happiness and health. Thank you J. I’ll go for a walk later on and take a photo of something nice in Cairns for you to fall in love with…and when you come to Cairns, I’ll take you to the beautiful spot so that we can all play there together.
Child Protection Party Game with snake bite
May 26, 2008
Talk doctor Rebekah was unable to hold court at the BITSS children’s party so I had to officiate. Oh oh…I’m too old. I don’t do kids any more.
“Know any games good for teaching emotional intelligence?” I sarcastically asked my own ‘Mister sometimes emotionally constipated’.
Master 12 really is an amazing child and I should not be sarcastic. He doesn’t understand my moods and hormonal reactions. He has Aspergers. Some days are good for him, some days are less than perfect 
Obviously I caught him on a sharing and caring day because he knew exactly which game I should play with a bunch of preschoolers for helping to teach them about the second BITSS element of intuition (feelings and early warning body signs).
“Have a competition,” he enthused. ”Slowly stretch a lolly (candy) snake as far as it can be stretched without breaking it. Make a sad face to the kids whose snake breaks and then a happy face when they put the pieces in their mouth to eat it. For the kid who wins, clap big time and ask him how he feels. Ask all of them what was happening inside their tummy or chest as they were trying to be the winner by stretching their snake. Ask them what would happen in their tummy or chest if it was a real snake!”
The protective play party was a success. The kids LOVED the stretch the snake game and really got into exaggerating facial expressions to match emotions and body language to display early warning signs. What an excellent and quick party game and teachable moment for intuition.
My child is brilliant and emotionally intelligent, so, I will not be packing him off to the snake pit of boarding school this week.
Five ways to empathic children this Easter
March 10, 2008
Imaginif you knew how important empathic intelligence is! Empathy helps stop our kids from doing the wrong thing, teaches them about cause and consequence, leads to better relationships with people and even helps concentration at school.
Empathy means having the ability to objectively put yourself into another person’s situation and more fully understand that person - particularly what the other person may be feeling. An empathic child considers how their own actions can hurt other people and are therefore unlikely to harm another person. A child without empathy is a warning sign of future problems that I watch for in my work with kids!
While we are busy teaching our kids to be the best person they can be, we also need to ensure they become the most intelligent person they can be. But, did you know that the two go together? Academic intelligence (Logical-Mathematical intelligence) is only one type of nine intelligences?
Interpersonal Intelligence (emotional and empathic intelligence) is just as important as academic intelligence. Interpersonal Intelligence is about children becoming leaders among their peers, being good communicators and understanding others’ feelings. Children who possess these qualities are less likely to be bullied, to be a bully or to get into trouble. Children with interpersonal intelligence are empathic.
It can be difficult to all of a sudden start teaching children about their inner emotional world and that of other people. Most parents struggle with their own emotional and empathic intelligence so encouraging it to develop in their kids is a hard thing to do. But….good parents will do almost anything to help their kids become good people so I’m sure you will want to start teaching empathy today.
Using Easter as an empathy teaching tool, start talking about what it might be like for others (empathy):
- Fair trade chocolate: Do you know that many children are slaves, forced to collect the beans that make the chocolate we enjoy. The kids get appalling wages for working appalling hours in appalling conditions. Buying ethical or fair trade chocolate though, ensures sending a message to the slave traders and lets them know we do not support using child labour. When shopping, check out whether there’s fair trade chocolate available - buy it and talk about how you are not eating a treat at the cost of children’s lives. If you do not do chocolate, buy an ethically made Easter gift from The Body Shop. The Body Shop is an activist organisation committed to social and environmental justice on a local and global level. They rock.
- Christ was murdered and we do not want to be like a murderer: The symbolism of an egg has been used all through out history and mostly represented the rebirth of nature. When Christianity became popular, the symbolism of the egg changed to represent, not nature’s rebirth (the changing season), but the rebirth of man. Christians embraced the egg symbol and likened it to the tomb from which Christ rose (taken from History of the Easter Egg). How dreadful that Christ was murdered. How cool to give Easter Eggs that remind people not to murder but to rise above the bad stuff and do good to others, a bit like Christ.
- Easter holiday emotion moments with other kids: Teachable moments always present when kids are with other kids. Over the Easter holiday use moments with other children to teach about emotions. That way your child can practice empathizing - Tim looks sad today, I wonder what is the matter?
- Giving to others: Many children will go without Easter Eggs because their parents have no extra money. Encouraging children to give to others less fortunate helps kids to think about what other children may be going through emotionally. This is empathy in action. Let your child pick an egg or two and take it to a shelter or a food agency that provides for children.
- Art and stories: Make cards of egg heads - each egg character has a different emotion on their face. Rather than the usual verse inside the card, have your child write a little story about why the egg has that emotional expression. Story telling is a great way to teach empathy because we remember stories before a Mum or Dad boring lecture.
Further reading for raising super intelligent kids:
Save the children: the difference between sympathy and empathy
The Nine Types of Intelligence By Howard Gardner
Teaching empathy to our children
Ways to Teach Empathy Skills
Slave to coffee and chocolate
How to teach empathy
Indian Child Labour
Credit: One very cool pic of a wee Hispanic girl dressed and ready for an Easter Egg hunt compliments of iofoto of stock.xchng. Check their incredibly helpful iofoto blog.
Manage your emotion
March 2, 2008
Today I feel bewildered. A little more than down and a little less than depressed. I have a scratchy feeling inside my chest, sitting centre on between my breasts. I know that feeling. It is my grief feeling. Is it anniversary of a particular grief time? No. I am missing somebody dreadfully and my homesickness for them has sparked my dormant grief.
In my past days of grief I used to liken my grief feeling to the Kiama blow hole (pictured) receiving the salty spray and ocean wash on its raw edges. I could hear my grief - I was so empty that the rush of grief as it sprayed salt water on my raw heart and soul was loud, cruel and screamingly demanding.
Today my grief is back. Why? As I lay in bed pondering the use of even getting out of it, I allowed my sensible adult self to manage my emotions rather than my emotions managing my sensible self. I got out of bed, told myself that it was okay to be down today and that I didn’t have to do anything more than I really wanted to. I certainly didn’t want to stay in bed because there was a snoring monster still in my bed of grief and vulnerability. I didn’t want to stay with his noise going on!!!!! I wanted my own noise, my grief noise so that I could manage it.
Everybody feels a range of human emotion: some they consider negative, some they consider positive and some they consider normal. All emotion is normal and natural. It is the way that emotion is managed that sometimes becomes problematic. In my grief this morning I could have feigned anger and yelled at Paul to be quiet because I wanted to be sad? How stupid would that have been! Very bad management to say the least.
My life has been difficult at times. There is residual fall out from that. But….I am not the sum of my experiences, I am willing to manage my experiences, the resultant emotion and the forward movement of life. I make choices to challenge those days where the dark room and I want to be best friends. A dark, quite room is not a friend. It gives me nothing I can give myself. I manage my emotions and my thoughts and step out of the dark, quiet room (well, it’s quiet when the snoring is in hiatus!).
I’m up, I still feel bewildered and I am processing why bewilderment has today visited me, but, I am managing my emotion. I manage because I am an adult, an adult who has managed programs, budgets, children, international terminal changeovers and threats against myself. I analyse my strategies for successful management in those situations and I draw them into managing my emotions. I do this because I am adult and capable to managing myself.
Do you manage your emotion or are you a reactive and child like emotion bouncer? Behind this link are some short emotional intelligence articles to help you grow up to become a great manager. The sooner you teach yourself how to be a grown up, the sooner you can model and teach emotional intelligence to your children. Emotional intelligence keeps kids safe. Are you willing to be a protective parent?
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