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Visualization And Therapy

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shimmerz

MyPTSD Pro
I don't want to hijack this thread, but I have a question for both of you @Echo and @shimmerz : You both mention having a "safe place," and that seems to be one of the keys to calming oneself. My therapist, early on, asked me to visualize this. I am a powerful visualizer--no problems with that at all. Yet I cannot seem to manufacture a safe place. When my T asked me to imagine a specific time when I felt safe, I couldn't find one. I told him I don't ever remember feeling safe. I'm not actually sure what safe feels like in my body or my emotions...I can often get to a safe soul-place, but it is very separate from physical and emotional feelings. So the question is, do either of you have any body or emotional memory of feeling safe/being safe that has helped you create your safe place? Or, if not, how did you manage to create one?

@Echo (sorry lost quote here)
I found myself shifting focus to the 'soul level' which is where I found my wisdom, strength and calm.
Does this focal place feel connected to your body and emotion? So sorry to be so technical. I'm struggling with this. I don't have a true sense of whether when I'm in that soul-place I am actually depersonalizing/derealizing etc., or actually doing something healthy. As you both probably know, not too many people are able or willing to talk about this kind of thing, so I'm hoping you might have some insights.
 
Back when I first got rekindled I would have pictures of things appear. A hospital room with me hiding under the bed. All white. Stark. All alone and being afraid of the door. I paid attention.

As time went on I started to imagine an island. I love water so I imagined calm waters that I could swim in. Nobody around. Didn't care if there was food or not but next I needed a dog. I pictured playing with the dog on the island so conjured up some toys for him. As time went on and I started to connect to what I found soothed me I decided I needed a cave to curl up in. Sunset triggers me so I made an island with sunlight all the time with a door that I could close in the opening of the cave so that I didn't have to deal with sunset. I then made a small little spot with softness all around me - a tight little space where I could sleep with my dog. So you see, it wasn't a matter of already having a 'safe time' but making place for me to go that would be my perfect place if I had my choice. It has grown since then.

I find that I visualize this before bed whenever I think of it and my night terrors have drastically reduced. Since my safe place has grown my life has expanded as well. When I feel unsafe somewhere I incorporate what I need for safety into my island. It has been fascinating the process. I hope this helps you and please don't hesitate to ask more questions if this posting resonates with you @Hope4Now . I am sorry, I was unable to find the link that you quoted for @Echo and it didn't copy and paste across as I had hoped it would.
 
@shimmerz - thanks for starting this thread. I don't know if the help desk or one of the moderators could return the quote to @Hope4Now, so that it makes sense to people who haven't seen where she posted it originally?
 
@Hope4Now - I think I would come unstuck if anyone asked me to go back to a safe TIME in my life; I don't think there has been one, other than temporarily with my last ex!

Finding one's safe space is a staple of guided visualisations. I've not come across the need to fix it to a time. I found mine years ago. I think the person involved got us as a group to visualise going on a walk in the countryside, seeing all the colours in nature in detail, sensing little animals in the undergrowth and birds in the trees, everything warmly disposed towards us, feeling the sun on our backs - that sort of thing. Then taking us into a field and up to the brow of a hill from where each of us would look down and see our safe place. Each of us was told it was our place and ours alone. It could be anything we liked, whatever came to us first. We could arrange it as we wished and what we said went there. Our rules. So we could invite and disinvite anyone to be there with us.

Like @shimmerz I have developed mine over the years. Once I had PTSD, I had to make some alterations but essentially it was the same. My spirit guide/guardian angel is there and looks after it, so it is totally safe and my first cat is there. Every time I arrive he is in a different guise to make me laugh (wine waiter, etc) - he is in charge of entertainment and refreshments! And I can just let go. I find it very healing and my therapist has incorporated it into our work now.
 
@shimmerz - I think you just have to post on the Help Desk thread, though I've never done it, and explain the problem.
 
Thank you both for these insights. I am trying to create my space, I guess, with not much success...perhaps the boundaries are not strong enough (oh, no great surprise there), and/or perhaps the lack of safe feeling is because I don't feel safe in my body, so it is very hard to "feel" myself into the space. It is all so amorphous even though I can see it so clearly.

Do you (you meaning anyone who is successful with imagining oneself into a safe space) feel physically and emotionally integrated in your safe space? Or is it more like you're looking at it from a distance?

When I try to do this, it's as if part of me is there but most if me is highly conscious that it isn't real...isn't truly safe for me, is just something I am making up. So I can't relax into it physically or emotionally even if I can spiritually.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense. I'm not articulating it very well.
 
@Hope4Now - I should imagine it is just very difficult to do this on your own at first. Once someone else has guided you in visualisation (and it is often much easier to do this in groups or with a 'leader'), it becomes something to which one can very readily return. I don't feel I'm looking at it from a distance. I feel like I am there.

I am not sure I would have been able to learn meditation skills once my PTSD had started; as I said elsewhere the distractions of the body are so much greater. You do need to be able to move beyond the physical and just go with the imagery. When one is on hyperalert, going beyond the body is really difficult. I have never been open to being hypnotised, for instance, and I think it is that because I have never felt safe enough to be completely in someone else's control. I find meditation (when my body is not driving me mad) safer. I can hold both levels of consciousness knowing I could whip back to my body if I were to need to. I would not want to do anything that put me in a trance-like state, because I would not feel I could do that.
 
I have trouble with the visualising of a safe place. I've never quite got it. I can think of a safe place in all its detail using all my senses but when I need to go to that place in therapy or elsewhere I cant quite get there or I'm there but things don't seem right, something is different about it. I don't feel safe, it doesn't help me if anything it makes me worse. I think its to do with my mental state at the time but I figured that was the point, its supposed to help.

I have no great words of wisdom or advice to help you but I will be following this thread to gain insight myself.
 
Yes, thank you @Echo, I wasn't quite sure how to do that so any help would be appreciated in that way.
Please post the quote which needs to be added to the first one here @shimmerz so we can fix the post. When you have done so then report your own post stating the quote needs to be added to the first post. Thank you
 
@shimmerz I use visualisation a lot. It's the basis of everything I've done in healing.

I don't have a "safe place" and I question the seemingly universal focus on that idea. Instead I visualise things like being strong and being protected. That might be me protecting myself - for example myself as a warrior or strongwoman of some kind. It might be something else protecting me, like light, or a magical animal, or an imaginary bodyguard.

When I was so scared that leaving the house even in the middle of the day was a real challenge, I visualised a guard of Roman soldiers protecting me when I walked outside. I chose Roman soldiers because (a) they have no negative connotations for me personally, b) I'd read that those in the rear walked backwards so that they could see if anyone was approaching from behind - very important to the way I was feeling at the time.

At the very least, I'd suggest that instead of thinking about a safe place, perhaps for some people it might be thinking about being with a safe person. And that person could be real or imaginary. But really, I think the sky's the limit.

I think the safe place idea is something that makes sense to therapists in theory much more than to clients in actuality. But I think ideas of safety and protection are something much more, and can really help.
 
I should add that I don't think the thing about safety is to get distressed and then go to a safe place. I think it's about starting in a place of safety and being there throughout the difficult things that are being addressed.

No idea how that fits with any previous discussions, so I'm not commenting on that. When you say "kays to calming yourself" I don't know the context. My point of view is that I don't approach things with the view that afterwards I can do things to calm myself. I get as strong as I can, and stay as strong as I can, and in that space I approach things.

I often do need to work on calming myself afterwards. I just want to say that that's not the only point at which I'm thinking about visualisation. I'm visualising all the time, and wouldn't even try to go there if I wasn't already visualisting before I started.
 
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