November
2001
Releasing
Muscle-Bound Memories
By David Drier |
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Only through your body do you experience your
life and your being in the world. —Alexander
Lowen, M.D.
In dealing with the awful events of September 11th, an often unexplored
avenue for therapeutic release is the use of deep bodywork and other
body-psychotherapy approaches. Because all of the events in our lives
are encoded into our very cells, deep forms of bodywork, applied with
sensitivity, in a safe setting, can be beneficial in helping a client
to access and release much of the strong feelings that may have been
stored as a result of the traumatic events of that fateful day. Feelings
of anguish, rage, fear, anxiety and resentment. Your breathing may
have
become faster and shallower, your throat constricted, and your body
tighter. Various internal states of tension would also have occurred.
As one of my patients put it: “Your body sheds the tears that your
eyes can’t.”
Everyone has what I call “body memory,” a memory of your own
emotional history that goes right down to the cellular level. Each person’s
body has a unique pattern of emotional holding, an emotional “posture.” Memory
alone can trigger this pattern: If you think about any event which
you experienced that had strong emotional content for you, you
may notice how your posture changes accordingly.
We also repress many emotions by breathing less, which dampens our feelings.
We can also tighten our musculature, which cuts off the natural rhythmic
flow of energy that a feeling generates. Repressed thoughts, feelings
and memories block the normal flow of life-energy in the body, disrupting
the normal working of the immune system and other bodily systems. Each
of us has the power to restore this bodymind to integrity.
Look at trauma not as a disease, but as a by-product of going into survival
mode, with the cause in this case being the terrorist attacks on New
York. We feel threatened and, if we are overwhelmed by the threat, so
that we cannot or do not defend ourselves, we get stuck in this survival
mode.
The responses to threat are instinctive and biological: fight, flight
or freeze. Under a sensed threat, we enter what’s called the arousal
cycle. Muscles tense, our senses prick up, searching for possible danger.
If we locate the source, and perceive a real threat, we enter stage
two and we mobilize. The adrenaline starts pumping. In the third stage,
we discharge this energy by completing the defensive actions. A fourth
stage moves us eventually back into equilibrium, but if we stay overwhelmed
by the threat, we have what trauma recovery expert Peter Levine calls
“hyperarousal,” a response meant only to create a short-term
defense. Left untreated, it becomes the symptoms of trauma. These can
include the following: Breathing difficulties, muscle spasm, rapid
heart
rate, feeling cold, and mental states such as denial, feeling helpless,
flashbacks, mood swings, hyperactivity, sleep disorders, sensitivity
to loud noises, nightmares, panic attacks, amnesia,
chronic fatigue, immune dysfunction, depression, and so on.
Trauma disconnects us from our families, friends and selves. As a result,
healing may also take time. At the body level, fixed muscular patterns
reinforce attitudes and defensive responses that actually restrict
our
options for how to behave. They reduce the level of feeling. With enough
restriction, one will actually lose all sensation of a body part. For
example, if we’re talking about the gut, one may get out of touch
with one’s gut feelings or instincts.
So—how best to deal with all of this? First, we can see that just
talking, while helpful, will not bring the best solution, because it
ignores the body. My own work therefore combines deep bodywork to break
down adhesions in the tissue, allowing for physical and emotional “flow” to
occur. Patients begin to sense their bodies more, and access their
feelings in conjunction with their bodies, rather than as simply mental
events. We may also talk at these times, patients often speaking freely
as feelings or concerns come up.
As a chiropractor, I see how this in turn helps clear up chronic cases
of neck and back pain, when the emotional component is handled this
way. One patient, after sessions of deep myofascial release to his jaw,
sobbed deeply, his body shaking in wave-like motions. His treatment
resulted in a feeling of clarity about his rage towards his father,
who had been an alcoholic and physically abusive. He was calmer, at
a deep level, and his jaw relaxed enough to restore some of his hearing
loss.
I also incorporate Bioenergetic exercises, to promote emotional “flow,”
which takes the form of pulsing, wave-like motions of the body like
those experienced by the patient I just mentioned. Patients begin to
sense how feelings play out in their bodies. This wave motion is the
involuntary flow of emotion, a form of discharge. The obvious example
is human orgasm, but it may be experienced with many emotions. Psychoanalyst
Wilhelm Reich called this life-energy “orgone.” Other cultures
call it chi, ki, prana or ruach.
I work with the client to uncouple fear from the freezing response,
completing the cycle of arousal. Some of the results are: Increased
body awareness, grounding, and feelings related to trauma are clarified
and validated. Patients connect to their own self-healing and strength,
while learning new ways to discharge repressed or overwhelming emotion.
Trauma, even immense trauma like that of September 11th, can be an
opportunity for change. We may take stock of the true value of our
life. The body-psychotherapy
approaches that I utilize are oriented to help the client to discharge
stored emotional trauma, to move out of the prison which is being built
into the body, allowing the spirit to soar. Ideally, with effective
therapy, our mind can begin to work in tandem with our body’s instincts
and feelings, and we can access our more thoughtful nature. The result
is more energy, enlarged perceptions, and emotions that don’t
get stuck. We relax more, become more spontaneous, and enjoy life more.
Dr. David Drier is a chiropractic bodyworker, whose treatments
include Deep Myofascial Release, Emotional Release Bodywork, Lymph Drainage
and Vibrational Medicine. He practices in Nanuet, NY and can be reached
at (845) 624-2447 or bodyworks1@Juno.com.
