Altered books and visual journaling (edited 11/03/2016)

Edited extracts from journal entries and a poem ……

A sea metaphor

Processing trauma can feel a bit like travelling by ship in stormy weather and it can at times become a rough nauseous ride. We need to master as much resilience and perseverance as we can, and we also need to be able to stay with the experience: the intense emotions, the bodily discomfort and sensations, the thoughts and images, the memories – until finally the choppy sea calms down. It reminds me a bit of the film ‘All is lost’ starring Robert Redford, which I watched a couple of years ago. When dealing with trauma you learn to surf through it; to surf through the stormy weather and the choppy seas and to navigate yourself back to dry land. You also need to let go. Learning to let go is paramount. It is a process and it is easier said than done, but it is vital. So, learning to let go over and over…. After all, unlike the sailor in the film, we are not in the water, we are not cold and wet, we are not in the past any more. We are on safe dry ground in the here and now. We breathe and we notice our breath, how it moves and how it changes and it brings us back into the present. It reminds us that the past is over, and within this new space we start to notice more……

White noise

At other times our past experiences are a bit like white noise, this mixture of sound waves playing constantly in the background, like for instance, when a radio or TV set is switched on but is not receiving a clear signal…..  Or perhaps like the monotonous sound of a fan spinning on a hot day or even the neighbours’ lawn mowers in the mornings. Trauma and past baggage is like this type of monotonous background noise that colours our current living, often below our conscious awareness. It corrupts all new, fresh experience without our even noticing. And because it is sublimal it is the more powerful. It stifles our intentionality and blurs our vision.  It influences our decisions. It activates and accentuates our stress responses. It causes pain in our bodies. It distracts our attention. Then adequately immobilized we politely wait – like the doormat outside our front door – to be treaded upon once again and the vicious cycle goes on……

The Breathing by Denise Levertov

An absolute patience

Trees stand up to their knees in fog

The fog slowly flows uphill

White cobwebs, the grass leaning

where deer have looked for apples

The woods from brook to where

the top of the hill looks over the fog,

send up not one bird

So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself,

a breathing too quiet to hear

Scan267Documenting violations in all areas while engaging creatively with DSM-IV

Altered books and visual journaling (continued)

Healing is all about integration, bilateral and vertical linkage and differentiation of parts of any system (brain, body, society) versus fragmentation and separation (Tonya Alexandri, February 29th, 2016)

Trauma, whether viewed at an individual or collective level is about division, separation, segregation; it is about erection of walls and gates, and closed doors. It is never about wholeness and integration, linkage and connection (Tonya Alexandri, March 27th, 2015)

Working on making sense of past experience and how it has impacted both the past and present is a process that brings about new understanding and clarity and highlights the simple truth that our human experience and sense of self are deeply influenced by our external environment and circumstances, and those we are related to in one way or another. There are no non-permeable boundaries between people and our self and experience is constructed within historical contexts. We do not exist in a void and we are embedded within particular socio-political and geographical contexts. We grow up in particular families and groups and are influenced by societal conflicts, values and practices. Nancy Chodorow supports that there are no non-permeable boundaries between individuals and that relationships involve ‘intersubjectivity’; a meshing of individuals’ desires, needs and anxieties. She challenges the individual-society dualism by suggesting that we internalise aspects of the world, during childhood, which become intra-psychic processes that can operate throughout our lives by influencing behaviour and social lives (cited in Sclater, 2007). By transcending the individual-society binary one can explore how external forces and processes are interconnected with individual and group psychological processes. Within this perspective the self is viewed as inevitably social; in constant interaction with family members, communities and institutions (cited in Tonya Alexandri, 2009). Additionally, the more recent findings in the field of interpersonal neurobiology support that we are connected not only to others but also to our wider environment, and that our mind, (embodied) brain and the people we interact with are interdependent. Neuroscience studies support that our connection to others impact our brains, health and well being, and that nurturing, healthy relationships are one of the important factors that can promote neuroplasticity throughout the lifespan.

Scan264aScan265aScan266a

Altered books and visual journaling (edited)

By Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos

‘Find time for thought, this is the source of strength.
Find time for the game, this is the secret of eternal youth.
Find time for reading, this is the foundation of knowledge.
Find time to be friendly, this is the road to happiness.
Find time for dreams, they will pull your vehicle as the stars.
Find time to love and be loved in return, this is the privilege of the gods.
Find time to look around you, it’s too short a day to be selfish.
Find time to laugh this is the music of the soul’

(Γιάννης Ρίτσος, 1940, Το εμβατήριο του Ωκεανού, Επιτομή, Κέδρος)

Θάλασσα, θάλασσα
τα βιβλία δε φράζουν το ερώτημα
το ερώτημα δε φράζει την πληγή
Απ’ την πληγή μας ξεκινάει το πέλαγος

Scan262Scan263