In these "unprecedented" times, Maggie, Jenny, and Danielle connect via ZOOM to discuss the practicalities of coming back to our bodies while we are practicing "social distance" from one another, engaging the trauma already living in our bodies, and developing ways to release our anxiety.
*Please note that at the time of recording the Governor of Washington had not yet issued a “Shelter in place” order. As of the release of this podcast, all Washington residence are required by law to stay home. Please, for you own safety and that of others, stay in your homes and practice social distancing when you do have to leave your home for food or medical attention.*
Jenny McGrath is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Somatic Psychotherapist, Core facilitator at the Allender Center, and specializes in using movement, mindfulness and narrative work to help people find their way back to their bodies.
Jenny explored and did research in Northern Uganda on how movement and dance could be used therapeutically which lead to her to graduate studies at the Seattle school. She learned about how the body is impacted by trauma and how the body is our portal to healing trauma, healing communities and to heal our world.
We have become disconnect from our bodies. Western thinking is that the body and mind are separate and are not connected. This thinking has been harmful to how we care for ourselves, body and mind.
Jenny grew up in theology and teaching around the body being something to get passed. And as a woman, she had a lot of messaging both implicit and explicit of the dangers of her body. She worked hard avoid her body and to use it as a tool. Her experience lead her to the mission field: “If I’m going to have a body it should be useful for others.”
After working in Northern Uganda for a couple of years her body told her no. She broke into shingles and her immune system shut down. She didn’t know what was going to happen and if she would be able to return to Uganda. It was at a conference she heard Dan Allender speak on longevity in serving professions. She decided to go to graduate school in Seattle, thinking she’d learn how to care for her body for three years and then return back to Uganda. The more she deconstructed her story and her faith, why she was so drawn to the places she was drawn to, she came to realize that tending to and learning how to inhabit her body was going to be a life long journey and a life long work.
Amari, her boxer dog, helps regulate her and her clients.
Right now, all around the world people are practicing social distancing and staying at home: it’s like getting a crash course in being with yourself. Not everyone gets the privilege to be with family members or a safe place to shelter. The current situation has made self-regulation so much more difficult as people are in tight quarters and anxiety and frustration are high. Not being able to express what you’re feeling in your body, what you’re feeling still comes out even when we’re disconnected.
How do we come back to our bodies? Societies that are to focused on productivity have existed as floating heads… but as we’re stuck in these spaces where we’re not used to working or being productive and it’s an invitation back to our bodies and ourselves in pretty drastic ways.
How do we listen to our bodies and interrupt what we are feeling? First Jenny encourages us to normalize feelings of anxiety that come up. One working definition of trauma she uses in her work is immobility, whether psychically or physically, immobility is a felt sense of trauma in our bodies. Listen to the impulses in your body, what does it want to do? Does it want to release adrenaline and cortisol by running or some other physical activity? When she is working with someone, their body is the wisest person in the room. Our bodies can move through anxiety and surprisingly quick to resolve the anxiety if we start to listen to our body’s impulses. The more you try ignore and push away, the louder your body will get. Pay attention, what are you noticing? When you engage in active noticing of your body, it will naturally begin to release the building pressure.
Danielle has been telling her kids honestly how she is; “Hey, I’m a little bit crabby right now and I was short with you, did I hurt your feelings?” It’s about stopping in the moment and putting words to what is going on with her, and allowing for there to be engagement. It has lightened the atmosphere in her home; We can’t always take the action we want to take, but having a conversation, putting words to feelings, can generate relief.
Jenny says how important this is because as we are all trapped together in our homes, our bodies are always co-regulating with each other. Science has show that even if someone doesn’t know there is another person in the room, their body does and begins to regulate their heart rate, breathing and even brain waves will start to sync up with each other. Even when your kids don’t know you’re feeling anxious by your words, their bodies are feeling what you’re feeling in your body as you are anxious. Naming what’s happening in your body helps them to become more conscious of what they are feeling in their bodies, and provides some relief.
Maggie shared that through this experience of practicing social distancing she has come to realize her own limitations. People who have experience trauma tend to keep a high level of busyness so they don’t have to feel in their bodies. Keeping a schedule with her kids to help them feel more normal has made her realized that she can not do all the things at the same time. She then had to acknowledge this for her kids, “Hey I see how all three of you need help right now and I am only one person and I will get to each of you in turn.” Feeling the pressure has made her evaluate how busy she is and also how important it is to engage your own kids about how you’re feeling so you can provide a space for them to talk about what they are experiencing in their body and mind.
When providing language for how to engage what someone is experiencing in their bodies Jenny likes to start with sensations, temperatures or energies that might not have a firm label. Is there a place in your body that feels warm? Is there a place in your body that feels squeezing tight? Having a directness when engaging awareness can be helpful!
Jenny offers classes and workshops for movement: Her “Embodied Story” workshop is about how we are embodied version of our story. She walks people through getting a felt sense of their story in a three hour workshop that includes psychosomatic education (how experiences are held in our bodies) as well as exercises that represent through movement a “walking through” their story timeline, emotions or events. Group discussion is an important piece to know that we’re not alone in this work or in feeling disconnected from our bodies.
She also offers a series of dance movement classes - creating a space for communal movement rituals that bring communities together. One participant said, “It’s so rare to dance in a way that my body is not being objectified!”
Danielle drew the contrast between the videos of Italians singing out of their windows together and Spaniards playing bingo out there windows, but here in the Northwest everyone is so spaced out that there really isn’t that kind of community to engage. Jenny has been dreaming and scheming ways to make this movement work more accessible online, including offering online yoga classes. Check her instagram to get updates. [@indwell_seattle]
Jenny remarks that social media is actually being used socially now, actually bringing connections rather than how it has been used for posting travel picture and where people are eating out which actually makes people feel disconnected.
Maggie shared her experience taking one of Jenny’s Body workshops in which Jenny said, “move the way you body wants to move.” It was then that Maggie realized she doesn’t really allow herself to even ask that of her body because she has made her body into a workhorse and demands productivity. What a freeing experience to invite us to our bodies, allowing our bodies to move as it feels.
Danielle named that we are feeling powerless, isolated and alone right now with the coronavirus. This feelings are a reenactment of trauma! When we’re in our house and you can not control the air you breathe when you leave, you’re feeling out of control. You can’t ignore other traumas that are affecting you from your past. And while we’re in our homes we can’t not engage! Jenny said it’s like a magnified version of what our bodies try to get us to do normally—our bodies are trying to develop some sense of agency. “I can do this. I can get through this.” Will you allow your body to have a new experience? Sometimes we can just imagine ourselves getting to imagine breathing clean air and moving, and our body-mind connection that the body can start to feel a little more free if we can allow ourself space to dream.
Jenny works in somatic experiencing where she has clients think through or imagine times when they are immobilized and then imagine a different ending to the story than the one they experienced. It allows the participant to get to have the felt sense that they are no longer stuck in that trauma.
A hack we can do in our bodies when we’re stuck in our “default mode network” (the place in our brain where we ruminate and store anxiety) is to just look around the room to look where we are. Notice what are five colors we can see, four different shapes… Instead of eyes scrolling endless media, use our eyes to see the tangible around you will help you ground into the present moment.
A similar grounding technique Maggie learned is to count down your five senses: what are five things you can see? Four things you can hear? Three things you can touch? Two things you can smell? One thing you can taste? It’s a way to start with the world around you and bring you right back in to yourself and into your body.
What can be helpful connecting to your breath: following your breath into your diaphragm, breathing out like through a tiny straw. Our breath can be our greatest allies.
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Jenny is reading:
My Grandmother’s Hands
The Purity Myth
The Body Guide for Occupants.
Jenny is listening to:
Bird Talker
Jacob Banks
Garth Stevenson
Jenny is inspired by:
Pattie Gonia - Drag in the outdoors, being in our bodies impacts our world.
Rachael Held Evans
Top resources for getting started in learning about your body: Peter Levine’s books as well as “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk.
Connect with Jenny and get more resources at:
www.indwellcounseling.com
Instagram: @indwell_seattle
White, Center, Seattle, Washington