The World is a Surprising Mirror of Ourselves

I was having lunch in Central London last week and when I looked around everyone seemed to be a zombie.

Not a literal one, from the movies, but like robots. They would come into the restaurant, most times by themselves, with headphones on, get their food from self-serve, pay with contactless, sit down, and start watching something on their phones, while eating. When they were done, they would clear their place, and leave. No human interaction the whole time. And this was the case for the majority of them.

I felt sad.

Mirroring Back

Since everything is a mirror of ourselves, I first asked myself: where in my life, do I feel like a robot?

That’s certainly the case when I am super busy and I don’t prioritize self care. This past month, I was away for 2 of the 4 weeks, traveling, learning, facilitating and so all the work got crammed mostly in those two weeks in between, and I lost sight of my self care.

The point is, we’re not always going to be perfect. Or not even good. But the gold is in our ability to notice our thoughts, feelings, the sensations in our body. The way we perceive and interpret the world around us is influenced by our internal state. The external world is a feedback mechanism. If we find ourselves judging others or being triggered by the same thing on the news/situations/people, it may be an opportunity to examine our own expectations, biases, or unresolved issues.

For me, seeing all these people like robots, reminded me of my corporate days, when I was a robot. Those days are behind me, but aspects of that life – the constant focus on the work and little time for personal care and development – can still show up at times, because it’s familiar behavior.

Practical Application

When that happens, it’s an opportunity for awareness and observation: What is the external world telling me about my current state and needs? What about my boundaries?

The practical application lies in examining them, then revisit our values and intentions, and consciously aligning them with our actions, recognizing the reciprocal relationship between our inner self and the reality we shape. Ultimately, the world as a mirror invites us to actively participate in the co-creation of our experiences by cultivating self-awareness and making intentional choices in our daily lives.

So if you feel like it, take a moment to pause, reflect, and ask yourself: What do the events in my life reveal about my beliefs and aspirations? How can I actively shape the reflection I wish to see in the world around me?

With each conscious choice, you contribute to your external reality and to a life that resonates with your authenticity. The world is your mirror—what reflections will you intentionally create today?

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We are more than our physical body – powerful video

In this 5-min video, I am sharing an amazing experience I had recently in a session with a client and it was an eye-opener for both.

The Five Bodies

In yoga therapy, we work with the 5 bodies or layers: physical, energetic, mental and emotional, wisdom, and spiritual body. In energy medicine, it’s similar, although the names are slightly different: physical, mental and emotional, mythic, and energetic.

The physical body is exactly what you would expect: sensations we notice in our body, movement, awareness of our body.

The luminous body

Our energetic body is our breath, our meridians, our aura. Part of it, like our breath, we can see and feel. Part of it, the one which picks up on “the vibe” when you enter a room for example, is less visible, but it’s still there.

The Q’ero shamans – descendants on the Inca – say that trauma happens at the energetic level. It’s an imprint which creates disease and causes part of soul, our innocence, which found the experience too overwhelming to seek refuge, until we are able to integrate the trauma and recover this part of us.

Alberto Villoldo calls this the “luminous body”, this field of energy that surrounds our physical body.

This is the part that my client and I had a similar experience with, simultaneously, without any communication. It made this invisible field visible, so if you are curious, I recommend you watch the video.

Creating a new future

The wisdom body, for example – and its counterpart layer in energy medicine, the mythic – is where we begin to see possibilities, we take the lessons that we learned from our pain and challenges and turn them into fuel for our new life.

Music, rituals, ceremony, chanting, meditation, tapping, dynamic movement…they all help the brain get into theta waves, the same waves that Buddhists monks, for example, achieve during meditation.

This is where the magic happens! That’s where and when we become unstuck from the past and are able to shape a new future! It’s where we start to hear our inner wisdom, our essence, talking to us.

This is the space that we are creating with the Women in Transition monthly circle, so that we move beyond trauma and reconnect with who we were always meant to be! Healing does not happen in isolation, it happens in community, in a safe and supported environment! Join us.

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Change is possible: the gift of pause and awareness

Change is possible

Three different stories

I have not had processed sugar in a week and yesterday I happened to have a raisin. Being such a concentrated amount of sweetness in this tiny fruit, the sugar hit felt so intense that I could only eat 2-3 before my body decided it was too much.

I had a dear friend who distanced herself from our friendship for personal reasons (it’s her story to share so I’m not going into details). I grieved our sisterhood and the beautiful moments we shared with our families. Recently, we had our first conversation in a long time and I discovered that our needs are so different now – and probably were all along but I couldn’t see it in my attachment to the relationship – that a renewed relationship would not offer the level of authenticity that I need.

I was working on a project with a team I had worked with before. The big vision and goals initially shared changed over the course of a year, ending up reactions to a mentality of scarcity and fear of loss. I had to sit with myself and decide. Beyond the attachment I feel for the team and the initial vision, is this energy we are working with right now representing me? The realization was that it’s not something I want to live and act out of.

Our past dictates our present

By now, I think you know what I’m talking about. Even though we have developed or inherited fears and coping mechanisms to safeguard us, we can grow out of them and form new habits that are healthy and life sustaining.

90% of the time we think the same thoughts we thought the day before. A thought that you think over and over again becomes a belief. The process of change requires becoming conscious of your unconscious thoughts. Just because you have that thought, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the truth.”

Joe Dispenza

Our present reality is a product of the past: of the thoughts we’ve developed over time, the messages we have heard, the events that happened, the environment we are in or were raised in. And that past has taught us to disconnect from ourself and isolate, or accept less than our worth.

Do you remember when you were a child and everything seemed possible? When you were full of ideas and you had all the answers. The answers are still in you. You just need a moment to pause so you can become aware of where you are and where you want to be. It is possible to create new habits and beliefs.

It is possible to think greater than your present reality, and history books are filled with names of people who have done so.

Dispenza, Joe. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Hay House.
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How important is the story of your trauma?

Pen and paper with the message "write your own story"

We all have a story

A story helps us make sense of things. When we meet someone, we first get their name and ask what they do. That helps us form a story about who they are, and place this person in a context. It’s just how our brain functions.

It’s the same with our life story. It’s usually made up of smaller stories, each one connected to a stage in our life, or an event that marked us. Lewis Mehl-Madrona says that

Stories contain our answers. They impose order onto the chaos of our experience. They help us organize our experience in time. They provide a beginning, middle, and ending. They locate our experience within cultural contexts and geographies. They tell us who we are, where we are, and what we are.

Mehl-Madrona, L. (2005). Coyote wisdom: The power of story in healing. Inner Traditions/Bear & Co.

In the context of trauma, however, most times, we don’t have a coherent story. Trauma survivors might remember parts of what happened, or sometimes nothing at all. When attempting to present a story, they often times have a hard time doing so. Why?

Broca’s Area

Broca’s Area is a part of the brain that controls our ability to speak. Brain scans have shown that when trauma happens and when a flashback occurs, this part of the brain goes offline. There is no activity.

This explains why trauma survivors may recall sensory information (smells, sounds etc) and yet they are not necessarily able to associate that with a specific event. Or they are not able to present a story.

A few years ago, there was a high-profile, televised hearing where a woman was deposed in relation to sexual assault accusations. She was asked about details of what happened and she had a hard time giving specifics. Many people said then that she was lying. That’s possible. And at the same time, it’s possible that she was telling the truth, but was unable to recall the specifics she was asked about, due to Broca’s area going offline due to the overwhelming experience of the event.

A story to be told

The role of a story is to help us understand what happened. It is also important that we tell our stories so that we regain our sense of agency and power. Stories inspire others to take action. They can also provide an identity and a course of action.

Many trauma survivors become activists and that is an important process in trauma recovery. The ability to tell your own story is what the Native American tradition calls “stealing fire”. It’s about “stealing” back one’s power, identity, or health.

This step occurs when we’ve had enough of the old paradigm. When the victim becomes the survivor and then moves beyond it, to thrive, and to write their own story.

Out with the old, in with the new

An old story limits us. Just like we outgrow coping mechanisms that have kept us safe up to a point but then begin to hinder our progress, the story of our trauma might start to hold us back at some point.

Consider the story of a label or diagnosis. The medical world uses diagnoses in order to create a treatment plan. This is what is necessary to receive the care that one might need. At the same time, the diagnosis creates a label and now we “are [the label]”, which often times triggers a change in behavior. We act differently because of what we have, or are.

In the Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk says that

a diagnostic label is likely to attach to people for the rest of their lives and have a profound influence on how they define themselves. I have met countless patients who told me that they “are” bipolar or borderline or that they “have” PTSD, as if they had been sentenced to remain in an underground dungeon for the rest of their lives… 

Van der Kolk, Bessel A. “The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma.” New York, New York : Viking, 2014

In this case, the story is limiting. Telling the same story of the trauma over and over again is causing us to still identify with it, and allows it to still have power over us. Consider this instead.

Who can you be beyond the story?

When I stopped identifying myself as having had PTSD, hypervigilence, or as a trauma survivor, etc, I started seeing glimpses of new possibilities in my life. It was scary to take the first step, it’s like retiring after a life spent in the same job. Who am I without it? What is my identity now?

While this may be an emotional step, it’s also been the most liberating one. Stepping beyond the story, I could be someone new that lived her life beyond the constraints of my trauma. I had to ask myself: Who am I now? What have I learned? Who do I want to be?

Even though our safety mechanism wants us to stay in the comfort zone, stepping outside of this zone, allows us to create a new life and for a new story to emerge.

Recently, many of us have heard the news of Tina Turner’s passing and immediately lots of stories came out about her overcoming her abusive past. She could have stayed in that relationship the same way she had done for 16 years before. But she chose to steal her fire and write her own story as the Queen of Rock’n Roll, an inspiration for all.

So, who were you born to be? And who are you, without the story of your trauma?

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Finding Connection When Triggered Can Be Easier Now

Masuro Emoto Water Memory

Everything is connected

As we know, human connection is necessary. Whether we realize it or not, we all live in a web of interconnected energy. Maybe you are familiar with some of the experiments that show that, like the one with the bowls of rice or the plants who are spoken kind and mean words to, and their color and vitality change based on the type of words and energy they received. Also, you might know Masaru Emoto’s water experiments, one of which I’m linking to here, to see the effect of silent gratitude on water. 

So, what we do, what we say, what we think sends ripples into the world. Similarly, what others do, say, think has an impact on us and the world around us. And what we watch.

This week, I sat in a sharing circle with 40 other people. After a few shares, one participant spoke about their sadness around the way we treat Mother Earth. However, as they were speaking, their passion turned into a discourse that was perceived as aggressive and judgmental by several people in the circle. 

Undoubtedly, the speaker’s intention was to find connection through what they believed was a shared pain. While that was true for some, for others, the share activated deep seeds of shame from the past, which now came up to the surface as feelings of judgment and rejection. However, it doesn’t mean that the first group cared about the Earth, while the second didn’t. 

Connection leads to compassion and empathy

In absence of the hooks of shame, the first group was able to receive the share with compassion and empathy. At the same time, past trauma brought out defensiveness and mutual judgment in the second group. Some or most of us reading this can probably relate to the experience of the second group. 

For me, I perceived the intensity of the share as aggressiveness first, because that is one of my own sensitivities from my past. Then, I felt sadness and grief because I wished that the delivery would have been gentler. At the same time, when I connected with the pain behind their words, I started to see the their own sadness and the passion.

So you see, everything we say and do has energy and we are all connected. We create ripples by our actions and words. That’s why, there was no surprise for me, when the same day, I received in my inbox a note from the leader of an organization I collaborate with, with a meditation which is similar to Loving Kindness, shown to increase connection, personal well-being and compassion towards others. 

Just Like Me Meditation

When you are ready, bring someone to mind who might seem different or distant from you, or someone with whom you are in a minor conflict. As you hold this person in mind as if they were in front of you, repeat silently to yourself.

This person has a mind, a body, and a heart, just like me.

This person has thoughts, feelings, and emotions, just like me.

This person, at some point in his or her life, has been sad, disappointed, angry, ashamed, or lonely, just like me.

This person, in his or her life, has had difficult times and experienced emotional pain, just like me.

This person has experienced moments of peace, joy, and happiness, just like me.

This person wishes to have fulfilling relationships and know that he or she is loved, just like me.

This person wishes to be healthy and happy, and have a life of peace and ease, just like me.

Now take a moment to sense how you are feeling. As you hold this person in your awareness, send them good wishes: 

May they be well. May they be happy. May they have everything they need to navigate this life with abundant resources, support, and love.

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How To Differentiate Between Trauma-Informed and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga

Trauma is a word we hear often these days. In the last few years, we have become more open to saying that we have experienced trauma and how we deal with the impact of it. COVID-19 also brought to the forefront the impact of such events. The pandemic caused new trauma and also stirred up old ones, forcing all of it to come up to the surface.

The Difference in Experience

When the sudden lockdown happened, many of us felt scared, isolated, like we had no power, and even hopeless. We all know at least one person whose behavior became so “unlike them” that we perhaps questioned their sanity. That behavior is a psychological and emotional response to the sudden and distressing event of 2020.

Trauma can result from a single event or from ongoing, repeated experiences. Gabor Maté says that “trauma is not what happens to you. It’s what happens inside of you, as a result of what happens to you.”

That’s because not all of us have the same experience. A support system offers the safety needed to integrate the experience and lessens the impact of the event. In absence of that, the individual may feel alone, isolated, uncertain about the predictability and safety of their environment. This psychological and emotional response can have long-lasting impacts on an individual’s mental and physical health, especially in the case of ongoing experiences.

Practice of Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY)

Using Yoga in Trauma Recovery

Yoga can be incredibly powerful tool, primarily to help balance an unregulated nervous system. It is an ancient practice which combines physical postures with breathing techniques to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, and help manage physical pain. Because trauma is stored in the body, moving through yoga postures can be an accessible tool for survivors to bring awareness back to their own body and mind, and start to integrate the traumatic experience.

Some of the consequences are the excessive focus outward, constantly scanning the environment, or inability to notice or process sensations. At the same time, breathing is often affected and it becomes more shallow, characterized usually by short chest breathing. Practicing yoga in a safe space offers participants the opportunity to re-engage in a safe way with their body and their breath.

Yoga can also create a sense of belonging. Whether practicing in a group or private setting, being with others and receiving the support from a qualified professional also increases the ability of participants to co-regulate, to feel seen, and connected.

Trauma-Sensitive Yoga vs Trauma-Informed

Often times, we find these two terms used interchangeably. However, they are not always the same thing.

Establishing safety is the first step in trauma recovery. Trauma informed many times means exactly that: that the practitioner understand trauma, how it affects the body, how it may show up on the mat, and how to create a safe space in which survivors can re-learn skills to reconnect with their bodies.

Sometimes that is enough for the participant to take the initial step.

An evidence-based practice

However, if you are looking for an adjunct treatment designed specifically for complex trauma and PTSD, then look into trauma-sensitive yoga, and more specifically Trauma-Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga or TCTSY. TCTSY takes the practice of yoga in recovery a step further. That’s because it is an evidence-based modality and a clinical intervention for complex trauma or chronic, treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It is a modality that has been studied and shown to effectively reduce the symptoms of PSTD to the point that in this study 52% of participants no longer qualified for the diagnosis after 10 weeks of practice. In 2021 a study showed that the practice of TCTSY yielded quicker symptom improvement, higher participant retention, and an equally sustained effect compared to CPT (cognitive processing therapy).

TCTSY also qualified for inclusion in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP), a database published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Choosing to work or learn with someone who is trauma informed or trauma sensitive depends on your specific needs. Often times it comes down to fit and whether you feel safe and can build trust with the practitioner. So ask your questions and trust your gut. There is always someone that matches your needs and the most important thing is that you are taking that step.

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How to Spot our Inner Saboteur

Read more
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Why some develop PTSD and others don’t?

How can two people experience the same traumatic event, and yet have a different response to it?

We all agree that war, for example, is horrific; and yet not everyone develops PTSD. The VA says that 11-20% of vets develop PTSD. Why is that?

In order to understand that we need to look a bit at complex trauma. As a reminder, complex trauma is a repeated event that takes place over a longer period of time, often of an invasive nature and which has an interpersonal element, and has long-term effects. The interpersonal element means that someone trustworthy, a caregiver usually is the perpetrator. In that situation, trust is first and foremost impacted. When this takes place over a longer period of time, it affects children’s ability to form a healthy attachment (white paper from Cook, Ph.D et al., 2003).

In absence of a caring adult, who is able to model emotional behavior, to respond appropriately to the child’s emotional needs, and nurture the child, the individual tends to: feel uncertainty about the reliability and predictability of the world; have problems with boundaries; show distrust and suspiciousness; isolate; they may have difficulty understanding other people’s emotional states, understand other points of view, and enlist others as allies (resource: Domains of Impairment in Children Exposed to Complex Trauma by NCTSN).

In simpler words, when in early childhood, the caregiver who is supposed to be the model of behavior and source of safety is absent or unable to help the child regulate emotionally, the child learns that the world is not safe. Therefore, as an adult, the impact of a traumatic event is more significant, with a high potential for that to result in PTSD.

On the other hand, when children feel safe, the impact of a traumatic event is not as significant. Having a support system is very important in processing the event and mitigating the impact of it. A study done on children during World War II showed that those separated from parents and sent away to be protected from German bombing were affected far more than those who stayed with their parents in bomb shelters (van der Kolk, 2014).

So why is support important? Support here refers not only to the immediate family, but also to extended family, peers, and the larger community. When the interaction with members of one’s support system are positive, when children (and adults) have role models and are able to learn healthy ways to interact and to cope with difficult situations, then their ability to replicate that increases, which leads to an increase in their resilience.

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The Need for Certainty

How do I know if I am making the right decision? How do I know if I am on the right path?

Certainty. We all have this need. If you use the chakra system, it’s part of our first chakra; or if you like Maslow more, it is part of our basic needs: safety, security, the need to belong. Steiner also talks about this. Between the ages of 0 and 7 is when we learn that our world is safe and that we can depend on our caregivers. 

This has also been explored at length by the attachment theory. Developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth, whose work has been instrumental in developing the attachment theory says that: “An infant whose mother’s responsiveness helps him to achieve his ends develops confidence in his own ability to control what happens to him.” (Note: the quote does say ‘mother’, but it really refers to the main caregiver.)

The “ability to control what happens to him” is what we define as having a sense of agency. When that doesn’t happen, the lesson we learn is that we are not enough and that our needs don’t matter. 

As adults, in our need for certainty and safety, we try to avoid pain. We think that if we can control our environment, our every step, we are able to do that. In reality, trying to control everything not only comes from pain, but it is also causing more suffering because it keep us from finding another way, a better way to live our lives.

So we want to see the whole path ahead of us until the end, before we make a decision, to know whether it is the right thing to do. Well, even if that can be possible on paper – s.a. I go to school, I get a job, I pay my loans etc – this path is rarely a straight line. 

So, what do we do then? Do we get stuck in calculating every possible outcome? Do we get stuck because we can’t see the end result? Or do we just take one step, as uncomfortable and uncertain as it may be? 

I took the picture above one morning and it made me think that Mother Nature always has a metaphor for us. Certainty is like walking or driving in the fog: you can’t see all the way until the end of the street, but it’s always clear a step ahead of you. And as soon as you take another step, another one unfolds. 

I found this poem the other day and I think it fits this topic perfectly:

“My grandmother once gave me a tip:
In difficult times, move forward in small steps.
Do what you have to do, but little by little.
Don’t think about the future or what may happen tomorrow.

Wash the dishes.
Remove the dust.
Write a letter.
Make a soup.

You see?

Advance step by step.
Take a step and stop.
Rest a little.
Praise yourself.
Take another step.
And then another.

You won’t notice, but your steps will grow more and more.
And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.”

Author: Elena Mikhalkova 

That one step at a time is the sense of agency we are talking about in trauma recovery. You might not be able to control everything, but you are able to control this next step. So if you are looking for certainty, that relies in taking the first step.

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