Visualization And Therapy

[Hope4Now]

Yay @Pencil I'm glad to see your post! I've missed you :)

What you wrote makes total sense to me. I love your memory of Anne of Green Gables. It makes my heart warm. And I think you have articulated something really important--the difference between a "place" and a "feeling." While my experiences are different in some ways from yours, what you say resonates on a deeper level.

For me, being outside in nature is enormously healing--if the conditions are right (I've had a lot of nature nightmares...some which might qualify as traumatic). One of my highest moments was arriving (after a very challenging kayaking trip) on a remote island in Maine...the sun came out...I spent an hour circumnavigating the island, and leapt into the ocean at the end. The people I was with probably thought I was completely nuts, but it was one of the most joyous moments in my life when I felt such a larger sense of myself in the universe. Part of the reason it was so very joyous is that it was REAL--in real time, in my body, in a physical place--not in my imagination. (This is a huge issue for me because part of my "trauma" --and my problem with creating a safe space--is not being able to trust myself, my body, or my feelings, as being real--especially what comes from my imagination...)

I'm desperate to repeat the island experience but trying to heal this chronic pain which makes those kinds of adventures impossible for me now. A lot of my hope for the future comes from a belief that if I can "heal" from PTSD, maybe I will have the courage and ability to find more of those experiences in my life. For now, though, I need the imaginative/inner world "places" or "feelings" and it's just not happening for me. And I hope, maybe, part of my healing will be learning to trust the reality of my imagination. If that makes sense?

have you ever lost yourself in a description or a ... whatever ... in a book, or song or a poem? Those were my safe places

Yes, yes, yes. I haven't been able to read literature since the PTSD hit (this is devastating to me as prior to that I used to read 1-2 books a week). I have lost myself in music recently, and some poetry. But my whole life I have lost myself (or found safety in) novels. It's ironic that when I am so desperate for a safe place or feeling now, my old go-tos are not doing the trick. I do suspect, however, that my getting lost in reading was a way of dissociating for me. I don't know, really. I did, for the first time in 7 months, start a novel on Wednesday. It may be too complex for me right now (the third in a dystopian trilogy by a Canadian author I love). I bought it at Christmas and was really excited about it. In fact, I have a pile of around a dozen new books waiting for me to be able to focus again. We'll see.

I do remember a feeling of safety, or actually almost a sensation of safety - and I find trying to get back to that feeling, instead of place,

I think this is really intriguing. It is the FEELING I'm looking for, really, like you. The place matters much less. When I write about needing a safe "place" I guess I really mean a feeling place. As I've mentioned before, this usually has to do with feeling "held" by someone gentle and kind and very safe. Whatever place I go to requires someone like that to be there with me.

I fell in love with language and literature; I remember the moment - I was completely absorbed and lost in the text, and I can go back to that moment.

That is a wonderful moment. I'm so happy for you that you had it. I remember a moment like this...sadly, the book was no real "classic" just a kid book that allowed me to "be" someone else for the duration of the reading, to see the world from their eyes (I think I was about 7 years old). That is what addicted me to novels.

You've inspired me to make more of an effort to get back to reading again. Maybe it will help.

 

[Pencil]

Whatever place I go to requires someone like that to be there with me.

I totally relate, but, alas ....

A question: Do you have favourite dreams or dream themes? Let's see if you come up with something before I elaborate.

make more of an effort to get back to reading again. Maybe it will help.

I'm actually hoping you'd remember something to be able to re-connect with a feeling that is inside of you, instead of having a 'new' experience.[DOUBLEPOST=1398472876,1398472632][/DOUBLEPOST]

feel I need to make two places

Indeed. But my response to that will elaborate on the dream theme I asked @Hope4Now about - so let's wait and see :)

 

[ghotiff]

a place that I can visualize where I can speak my truth to people

I like this idea. I think this would work better for me than the 'write them a letter' approach that my ex-T suggested.

On a somewhat related topic, I had a friend who introduced me to the concept of a psychic conversation - its where you have a conversation with someone who is not there, but you imagine you are talking to them. The key is to explain where you are at and then ask them very clearly for what you need (a clear and tangible request). I did it once (a non PTSD thing) and it did help, in part because it got me to clarify in my own mind what I really did want from this other person.

 

[Hope4Now]

A question: Do you have favourite dreams or dream themes? Let's see if you come up with something before I elaborate.

Ok. I'll play. Dreams (like asleep dreams) are an issue for me. I haven't been able to remember my dreams for several years. I recently read that this can be an effect of high (or low? I can't remember) cortisol levels from stress. In the past month though I have remembered a few; however, I don't interpret your question as relating to sleeping dream themes, but more to fantasy dreams. I hope I'm right. And, I think you mean favorite dreams related to feeling safe and secure? (Of course, that's what most of my fantasy dreams are about anyway).

Here goes. Since I was VERY young (maybe 6 or so), I have had the same dream theme. The characters in it are always different, and always someone cast from my "real" life--either TV/Movie?Novel characters, or actual human beings in my life. The "dream" is about being "saved" from the hurt and fear, and being held physically and safely in the rescuer's arms, and taken away somewhere different from where I am to be loved and cared for. Sad to say, but that's about it. It's like a constant replay. It's where I go when I need that safe "feeling." The "narrative" of it is always what leads up to the rescue. There's no story after that. It's as if once that happens, all sorts of possibilities open up.

When I was young, the "dream" always involved the convenient removal of my parents, and the rescuer's recognition that I was hurt. Having my parents removed from the picture, and being recognized as hurt (usually physically) seemed a prerequisite to being rescued. As I got older, not much changed other than the rescuer. In the fantasy at all ages, the "I" I imagined was always much younger than the "I" in real time. Some belief took hold that I would only be able to be "rescued" if I was very young and cute. (I was actually young at some point, but I never felt I was cute. I have always felt like a huge monstrous person...probably body dysmorphia as I'm about 5'4" and overweight, but not hugely). Always, I believed that in real life, in my real body at the time, nobody would care enough to rescue me.

These dreams continued until I was in my 30s and got overwhelmed by marriage and work and children and was such a walking disaster of exhaustion that there was not even any energy to fantasize. Every once in a while, in particularly stressed moments, I would revisit these dreams, but they'd lost their power to soothe me much. Somewhat different dreams along similar lines began to reoccur in my life around the time my chronic pain started (about two years ago). Probably because all my childhood s*&t began to resurface (although I didn't know that's what it was) and a lot of massive life stressors converged. Now, I'm back to the similar dream/fantasy except my parents aren't part of it...nor does my family have to be conveniently removed (which is good because I always felt rather ashamed of imagining my parents dead or gone). The dream is always about a strong, kind, gentle person saving me from my pain. And still, sad to say, I have to imagine myself as much younger and "cuter" than I am. As if I am not worth being saved.

There. Said it. Probably way more detailed than anybody wanted to hear. But it is what it is.

 

[Hope4Now]

I'm actually hoping you'd remember something to be able to re-connect with a feeling that is inside of you, instead of having a 'new' experience.

Hmmm. That's hard. And interesting to think about too. Sometimes I get some peaceful feelings from poetry--especially Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry and some of Tony Hoagland and random others. But not "safe" the way I want to feel safe. I take great solace in the music of some singer-songwriters (these days mostly Dougie MacLean and Catie Curtis and my good friend MC's songs). But the solace comes more from a grasping that I'm not alone in all the things I'm feeling...a sort of "misery loves company" sense. I just made a new playlist called "Hungry for Love" with around 20 songs by different people about the driving need for love to fill the emptiness inside us. Music does soothe me, but still doesn't make me feel safe. As for literature...there have been bits and pieces through the years that I've glommed onto and that feed the dream I shared in the previous post. An odd assortment that is ever-changing...not things I revisit regularly.

Of course, so much of what I have tended to read is not "soothing" in any way. I did lots of critical work on African American women's fiction, and I read a lot of dystopian novels, and novels that engage with odd things (I love Umberto Eco, for example, and am attracted by novels that deal peripherally with the sequelae of deeply traumatic things...genocides, etc., and I am a closet mystery addict). It's funny, though, now that I'm writing this, one of my top 10 novels keeps popping up in my head. There was something about The Elegance of the Hedgehog that captured a bit of the safe "feeling." I just can't remember what it was or why.

Sorry, @Pencil. I'm a big fail here in terms of finding safety in literature, although I get what you're saying. I think maybe my memory is so bad that things from lit that fueled the safety in the past just don't stick. I am forever having to re-create.

 

[Hashi]

It is the FEELING I'm looking for, really.... The place matters much less. When I write about needing a safe "place" I guess I really mean a feeling place.

... rather than a safe feeling? I'm wondering if the phrase "safe place" is actually unhelpful in the sense of associating safety with the idea of some kind of relocation when I don't think it has to be at all. If the place doesn't matter much to you, do you need to involve that word at all?

You might not be using "place" literally. You might be using it in a wider sense of mindspace, for example. At the same time I think the words we use are important. They shape our perceptions. We have to go to places. We have to get there. And in fact you say:

I have great visualization. I just can't seem to get myself to the space...can go there in my intellectual/visual self, but the emotional and physical selves do not feel safe there.

You also say:

As I've mentioned before, this usually has to do with feeling "held" by someone gentle and kind and very safe. Whatever place I go to requires someone like that to be there with me.

So I would first of all suggest not using the word "place" and use something else. Like maybe "safe feeling". Or "safe person".

I'd also say that even though I have no idea what your visualisation is, from various things you say it sounds like you need something much more visceral.

I think this is why the bat cape idea is useful in the situation with your mother. It isn't a place, it's a feeling of something around you. Whether on a conscious or a less conscious level, I would guess that part of it is that it's physically comforting. It's "holding" you and you talk about a feeling of safety in the idea of being held.

this usually has to do with feeling "held" by someone gentle and kind and very safe. Whatever place I go to requires someone like that to be there with me.

There's something I'm wondering about here when you say "and very safe". I don't know if you have a description of that in your mind. I think it might be helpful to because that is, I think, something important to build on.

Another reason I imagine the bat cape is helpful, is that it's not only soothing. It has powers. It has active energy.

I think some of the time when people have trouble with "safe places" it's partly because a place is so static. Passive. Removed from elsewhere. It's safe if you stay within it, but how can you be there and also be out in the world doing things, or talking in therapy? How you can you have a place acting for you, when you're in a different place? All you can do is venture out of a safe place, then when that gets too much, retreat back to it.

Since what you're struggling with is energies, and energies are very active and easily activated, I think you need something active to counter them. More powerful, good energies. Active protection on an energetic level.

I can't help wondering how helpful the idea of a place is at all, and whether you'd be better of forgetting the place and focussing on the person. For example, rather than have a safe person in a place you try to "go" to, can you visualise that safe person walking always at your side?

If I understand correctly, the person can hold you and that is soothing and comforting. Do they do anything active to protect you from the negative energies?

I find safe warrior images very helpful. I have to be careful not to use an image that could backfire on me, so personally I wouldn't imagine a soldier type of warrior because that would be too scary. But for example I like the idea of a historical Chinese female warrior who fights ghosts and wins, like in Kung Fu fantasy films. Beautiful, feminine, white-robed, with special powers, able to fly and always on the side of good. Someone whose power is at the energetic level. I've used this image consciously and once before a trauma therapy session I had a spontaneous image of sitting talking with my therapist while this figure gathered up dark energy inside me and pushed it up and out of me.

Of course it doesn't have to be a female Chinese warrior. I just give that as an example of a protector on an energetic level. For the same purpose I visualise light, divine wind, a magical animal and other things.

It doesn't have to be visual either. I usually imagine something more tangible, with form. It's more of a feeling or an action that I imagine, rather than a visual image.

Some of the energies are somatic ones. Massive chronic pain

I remember asking in a different thread if you talk to your body or central nervous system. I'm not sure you responded on that point. I think this is something that would definitely be worth trying. It sounds like you have a very high level of somatic connection and I think you could probably make use of that by developing a two way communication rather than predominantly one way.

The body/system doesn't only speak. It also listens. In fact I've found that it needs dialogue, and where things have got too intense it actually needs some direction.

For me, "triggered" means that negative energies get activated enough

Basically they are frightening and very toxic/destructive energies that flood me at times. They can get activated by things outside of me, or by certain patterns of my thinking or behavior, or they can just come up seemingly out of nowhere. They are always there...but are sometimes muted.

Ach, I've been talking far too much already. So rather than ramble on any more, I'll just say that I think it needs a proactive approach rather than a reactive one. I've never found it useful to identify triggers or try to work on them. Nor have I found it very useful to work on triggers/activation on the conscious level because by the time it's conscious too much has happened subconsciously already.

In terms of activation of scary and destructive energies I've always visualised protection at a subconscious level. I have a whole load of things that fight off triggers, regardless of what the triggers are - I don't need to know. All I have to concern myself with is keeping that protection in place and working in my subconscious. And I've communicated with my subconscious about this a lot too.

No doubt there will be some people who think all this is woo woo. All I can say is that it works. I've been safe enough to process trauma, able to manage well enough to function and move forward in healing. I haven't had flashbacks, hallucinations, nightmares or a breakdown since I started doing all this, through four years of some very grim processing and therapy.

 

[Pencil]

I think some of the time when people have trouble with "safe places" it's partly because a place is so static. Passive. Removed from elsewhere. It's safe if you stay within it, but how can you be there and also be out in the world doing things, or talking in therapy? How you can you have a place acting for you, when you're in a different place? All you can do is venture out of a safe place, then when that gets too much, retreat back to it.

This is exactly my problem - thanks Hashi. And when I feel threatened, I don't want to retreat into my safe place, as I don't want to 'betray the whereabouts' or take the threatening 'thing' back inside with me.[DOUBLEPOST=1398508862,1398508603][/DOUBLEPOST]

There. Said it

You know how much I relate. More than relate, we share a leitmotif.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Hashi, thank you so very much for all you wrote. It was not too much at all (for me at least), and it was very helpful. You have articulated in a clear way what I have been wrestling with. Especially the idea of not having a static place to retreat to, but an active energetic aspect of being that is with me always. And...for the record...what some people consider "woo woo" is mostly always in complete alignment with my intuitive understanding of how individual and universal consciousness (for lack of a better term at the moment) function. I will spend some time today reflecting on what you say and how I might integrate it into my healing.

You asked whether I talk to my body. I'm sorry if I didn't respond to that question in a different thread...the question may have come at a time when I wasn't able to process it/make sense of it. I am now. Oddly enough, I have just begun to talk to my body in the past few days.

Yesterday, I started to panic because I could not get my socks on due to the pain. I had a bit if dialog with the physical parts that were causing the trouble. It was sort of humorous, actually. I said, "ok pain thing...could you pleas give me a little space...just enough so I can get my socks on...I'm not asking you to let go completely and reveal to me whatever you're protecting me from...I'd just, please, like to get dressed!" I said it in a very compassionate way. And...it actually worked. Just for that moment, but it was a little breakthrough.

Proactive rather than reactive as you distinguished. I will need to work more on this. My therapist has explained that I have a tremendous amount of "embodied energy" and that these are parts of me I need to work with just as much as the other parts (like negative beliefs, etc.)
Again... Thank you for taking so much time to offer your insights to me.

 

[Hashi]

"ok pain thing...could you pleas give me a little space...just enough so I can get my socks on...I'm not asking you to let go completely and reveal to me whatever you're protecting me from...I'd just, please, like to get dressed!" I said it in a very compassionate way. And...it actually worked. Just for that moment, but it was a little breakthrough

Exactly! This is a perfect example. And you can do this on different levels - small things, big things, very big things.

Working with the body, with energy, with the subconscious... it's amazing how much response there is. I believe we're "meant" to, that it's the natural way of things. It really does work, in my view because it's so right.

 

[shimmerz]

Oh my! There is so much good in this post and am still processing the visualizations and realizations that have come up this week. Please be patient with me as I really like where this thread is going and would like to answer and comment on the incredibly powerful ideas I am seeing here! Love it and gives me much opportunity to 'play'. Thanks guys!

 

[Hope4Now]

A question: Do you have favourite dreams or dream themes? Let's see if you come up with something before I elaborate.

Pencil, are you ready to take a turn? I'm looking forward to your elaboration... but it's okay if you choose to say no more on it. It felt pretty risky for me to write what I did.

 

[shimmerz]

I had a friend who introduced me to the concept of a psychic conversation - its where you have a conversation with someone who is not there, but you imagine you are talking to them.

I understand exactly the psychic attack issue. I struggled with it for about 6 months. A healer friend who is a minister as well as a medium taught me how to control this. It was terrifying while I was in the midst of it. She suggested originally that I ground through my body, but given that my body is ungrounded while in this state I could not get myself into a calm state this way. Instead I worked on closing my chakras. We worked on that as well ad focussing instead of on my body - my strongest part of myself. My heart. It most likely does not make sense to most but it is the way I got it out.

I believe that there is merit in your statement quoted above. Another healer friend of mine mentioned that he thought it was best that I 'go to' whomever I needed to speak my truth to and then leave as opposed to 'bringing them ' to me. I believe there is merit in this but I just cannot yet picture whether I would feel safe in their space. Again, no idea if this makes sense to anybody.

As far as the visualization I have gotten to the point where I can now get myself to my safe place by feeling how it feels to me to swim but instead I am provided a tunnel where I am surrounded by water and am transported in that tunnel. I couldn't seem to leave where I was without putting this into place. Now I can switch with ease. I have worked on this the past three days and have stopped with my night terrors (regardless of how I feel at night before sleep) by using this water tunnel (I love being under water) to drift into my safe place. Once I get to my safe place I lie on the beach in the sunlight and just lie there.

I work with Native American shamans and power animals and I picture my power animal coming to me and lying beside me and I attach to it's calm energy. I can then get up and wander around with my animal and visit the places I have built to soothe myself.

Whenever I can fall asleep this way, I sleep right through the night and in the morning am not feeling disturbed by 'ghosts' of the night.

More later.... so nice to be able to speak of visualizations and hear other people's strategies and ideas on this. Thank you all