Notes on Post-Trumpatic Stress Disorder & Cultivating Resiliency

A conversation with my friend Demetra today, sparked in me this inquiry around boundaries. 

I said something like, `The dominant western/american/colonial/hierarchical/ culture has a fucked up relationship with boundaries!` 

Every time I start to shake the past two days, (since this period of what some might call post trumpatic stress disorder) (i do feel like since the most recent presidential election, a lot of trauma has been activated individually & collectively) I immediately begin to throw up. Not physically, but this interesting energetic gagging. It feels so real, as if I was actually throwing up. My body feels different afterwards, more ease. 

And I am reminded about what I have learned in my studies: boundaries. And how because most of us have not been taught to properly process and use the fuel of our emotional energy, we don't know how to contain it, it spills out, onto others, covering them, emptying us, in a way that can leave us depleted… and disempowered. The energy of our emotions is like gold. If we know how to bring it into our bodies and express it from a place of power, it transforms into resiliency, strength, and intimacy with ourselves. 

I have so much gratitude for the elders who are stepping up and in to these conversations lately. Melissa Michaels, a 5Rhythms teacher and mentor of mine, reminded everyone on Facebook the night of the election results to get up and move, shake their bodies. This teaching has stayed with me and helped me in so many ways. 

I am also learning that art does something incredibly special with the emotional process. The act of expressing ourselves in some way, that is not pointed at another in blame, but is just pure in its raw and erotic bursting out is something so mysterious and so human. It is the nonverbal language of feeling, of surrendering, of being fully alive. 

Art as survival. Art as social change. Expression as healing. 

I realize that my barfing is a way of emptying myself out of other peoples emotional energies to make space for my own. It is a reminder of my boundaries, of the way we dont know how to respect our own emotions so we don't know how to respect each other. It is almost like Internal Family Systems therapy where there are thousands of voices inside at odds with one another // there are thousands of voices of unique particular human experiences across the planet at odds with one another. I was by the creek, taking solace in the sound of the water and the feel of another`s skin, and before I could rest beside the creek, I had to energetically vomit out a heavy stone feeling and bloated uncomfortable pain out of my system. This is typically a quick process, but I do not rush it. As it came out, I saw that it was my mothers. I had just gotten off the phone with her in a rather emotional conversation about the most recent election… Encountering difference in each other and I wonder what it would be like to pause and bring attention to how we are both humans in the messy face of meeting difference in one another… I felt upset by the interaction, and it felt like a familiar, childhood feeling… Something many people have mentioned to me the past day… How very particular childhood memory feelings are being triggered right now… And I walked down to the creek. I processed the trauma that came up between my mother and I, and it seeped into the Earth. Returning to a source, as compost. 

I get a text message from her almost immediately upon hanging up, before walking to the creek. 

`Love u, sorry you are upset! xo` 

My heart broke: 

Yes, yes there is still love underneath the messy meeting of difference, and yes we will continue to recognize it. 

I love you Mom. Thank you for giving me life. May we all be tender with our boundaries, our mothers, and our bodies today. 

Leading a sensual blind walk in my Decolonization Naropa Seminar recently, cultivating community resilience & trust