Living with ourselves every day, it is easy to get stuck in same old-same old ways of looking at ourselves and our challenges. Fresh metaphors can shake loose these perceptions and open our bodies up to new possibilities. My favorite metaphor for body wisdom is the swiss army knife. A swiss army knife (SAK) is a compact container of handy tools that often includes a screwdriver, nail file, corkscrew, toothpick, scissors, and tweezers.

Swiss army knives are portable and convenient. You can carry your SAK with you anywhere, and at any time reach for it, open it up, and quickly select the tool you need for filing, opening wine, etc. You can add new tools to your SAK–some SAKs have over 80 attachments!

The SAK is a perfect metaphor for our body’s versatility and capacity to store and swiftly access useful responses to real-life situations. We can use the SAK perspective to take honest stock of our habits and their impacts, and to add healthy, effective habits to our repertoire. The SAK metaphor can give us permission to access healing attitudes and actions, and motivate us to practice what we want to become. Here’s how to use the SAK metaphor for yourself:

Taking Stock

Let’s open up your SAK and discover the ingenious tools your body is storing in there. Observe yourself for a few days, looking for repetitive body-mind patterns. Ask yourself (or ask a friend to help you): What are you really good at? Or, what do you do all the time that really annoys you? Be curious (not judgmental) about your automatic behaviors. To help you identify and name what you find, here are some descriptions of common patterns:

a) I move fast—I figure out complex problems quickly and accomplish a lot in a short time

b) I automatically blame on others when I feel uncomfortable

c) I notice injustice very swiftly

d) I am good at not being noticed

Once you have identified a pattern—your SAK attachment–use the following inquiries to take stock of this embodied tool.

First, list the good things or advantages of this tool. Include all the ways it helps you in your work, or in taking care of yourself, or in how you relate to people. Here are examples for each of the above patterns:

a) I am great at multi tasking

b) I am confident in my actions

c) being able to spot unfairness/injustice quickly makes me a skilled activist

d) I am great at getting important work done behind the scenes

Next, list the side effects or disadvantages of this tool. How does it undermine what you care about?

a) It’s hard for me to slow down and feel my body

b) I’m not good at being with my own discomfort

c) sometimes I jump to conclusions and see injustice when it isn’t there

d) I don’t get the appreciation I deserve

Finally, make a list of all the ways this tool shows up in the different areas of your life. Even your SAK attachments can have attachments!

Your list for
d) “I am good at not being noticed” might look like:

· I avoid really splashy projects, or I let others be in the spotlight

· I am great at getting people to talk about themselves and taking the focus off me

· I avoid eye contact

· I change the subject when people praise me

· I hold my body still when I am in a group of people

· I curl my body up to make myself smaller

Taking stock in the above ways help us understand what our SAK attachments (automatic behaviors) are trying to accomplish, and paves the way for using these tools consciously and choicefully. Just like the tools in a SAK can be both useful and dangerous, our well-practiced tools are neutral. We can use them to support our success, sabotage ourselves, or both.

Where Do Your SAK Tools Come From? How Did They Become Automatic?

Whenever we practice any behavior over and over, such as putting on our shoes, or chopping vegetables, eventually this behavior becomes swift and automatic, like a speed-dial. At this point you have added a new attachment to your portable SAK of automatic behaviors.

Trauma is a common source of our SAK attachments. Trauma can include attachment trauma, abuse, emotional neglect, or any situation that was overwhelming and harmful to us as children that adults were not able to protect us from. Trauma can also include oppression visited upon ourselves and our families and communities, such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, etc.

During experiences of trauma, our bodies draw on the innate biological flight, fight, freeze, appease, or dissociate survival strategies of the limbic and reptilian brain, eventually choosing the ones that best help us survive and adapt to situations of extreme stress or danger.

When the trauma or oppression is ongoing, individuals and communities keep repeating the most successful survival behaviors.With repetition these behaviors turn into swift, automatic “speed dials” or SAK attachments which use our energy more efficiently. For example, a kid who is frequently beaten by their parents or other kids may find that being quiet and making their body small minimizes further abuse. Instead of reinventing the wheel each time, this child repeats these successful behaviors until being able to go unnoticed is as natural to them as breathing.

SAK attachments can also include body postures, body armoring, or automatic thoughts and actions that repeatedly show up in our families and communities. To take stock of ancestral or community SAK attachments, you can ask yourself:

What behavior strategies did your community or ancestors use to survive oppression or abuse? How were these strategies intelligent survival choices, given the options open to your community in the past? How did these behaviors kept them alive, sane, or safe? What were the side effects/limitations of these behaviors?
For example, using d) “I am good at not being noticed,” ask yourself or another community member: how did it advantage our ancestors if they were not noticed?

[To read more about specific oppression survival strategies and how they become embodied as internalized oppression and internalized dominance, see my 6/08/10 blog entry: “Surviving Oppression, Healing Oppression" at http://www.vanissar.com/blog/page/2/ ]

Whether they have been developed solo or inherited from our families and communities, we end up carrying toolkits of embodied skills that we default to in stressful situations. But unlike swiss army knife attachments, we are rarely conscious when we use them; it’s as if they are using us.

Appreciating What You’ve Got

Okay, so now you know what’s in your SAK—what next? Attitude is crucial. What I am calling a SAK attachment or tool, you might call a bad habit, or an unhealthy behavior that is messing up your life. You may judge yourself for your unconscious and automatic habits, such as reaching for ice cream when you are sad, or staying on Facebook for 3 hours when you need to sleep or work, or lashing out in conflict situations. But self-judgment is just another automatic behavior (!), and it does not solve the problem.

Judgment Versus an Attitude of Gratitude

A more skillful approach is to see your automatic behavior as one of the effective, well-honed tools in your SAK. Practice an attitude of gratitude. Maybe you are reading this and thinking, “Gratitude?!? But Vanissar, I hate that I do that! It’s getting in my way. It’s ruining my life! Okay. But remember, any behavior that is automatic became that way because at some point it got you or your ancestors through a difficult time. Maybe it’s how your ancestors figured out how to survive. This allowed you to be here now, taking stock and getting ready to create new, libratory ways of being. Survival strategies deserve to be honored for doing their job. Gratitude is an appropriate response. Appreciating the SAK attachments you have created or inherited from your ancestors is a crucial foundation for your next steps.

Next month– Part II: Transforming Your SAK Attachments Into Choices & Adding New Attachments

During times of enormous pressure, we need an enormous perspective: the soaring eagle’s vision, an ocean of fluidity; infinite space and eternal time.

In the timeframe of eternity, energy (or emptiness) contracts and releases; creating matter (or form) and dissolving it again in an endless cycle. A tulip reaches its glowing petals into the sky, dances proudly in the grass. Then it begins to droop and shrivel, eventually melting back into the soil. We are part of this exquisite cycle. Like the tulip, your amazing body is a temporary contraction of energy into a material shape. Your sense of “me” is a temporary contraction of consciousness into a unique personality. Each one of us is as lovely and precious as a tulip. This precious body and sense of “me” will also melt.

Our brief human life only seems substantial because we tend to focus on the form part of the cycle. But form is bookended on either end by formless eternity. Even though the body-contraction is relatively brief, we get fixated on the “on” button, and make much of ourselves. This natural misperception causes us to suffer, and separates us from our original home in vastness.

From the perspective of vastness, human existence is as natural as breath: our life is an inhalation, our death an exhalation. Life breathes generation after generation of human beings. From the perspective of eternity, we can enjoy our bodies, our quirky personalities, other people, and the surprising twists and turns of our lives without taking it so seriously. What a relief!

The vast perspective supports healing and social change, too. If contraction is part of the natural rhythm of life, then pain is also a natural, temporary contraction. As is disease. Trauma is contraction. Unjust laws and systems are temporary contractions. Within the vast view, these smaller contractions are just like ice. Ice is hard, and immoveable. Yet given the right conditions, ice easily melts.

If I am anchored in vastness, then even if I am sitting with chronic physical or emotional pain, it doesn’t have to swallow me up. Even if my distress lasts all day, all week, or for the rest of my life—I know that it will definitely end. It will soften and dissolve. It isn’t the last word, and it cannot define me or Life.

By the same token, any trauma (experiences that cause us to contract our aliveness to protect ourselves) that has arisen will dissolve; this may happen while we are still alive, or when we die, or it make take us many lifetimes to release trauma patterns. At some point, all of our traumas will resolve and dissolve.

So within a vast view, trauma and pain–like the body itself–are like the weather. Why worry about the rain, or the wind? Weather is natural, and it will change. There is no need to blame anyone or anything. Within the eternal perspective, there is no problem, and no urgency.

If in the long view, it is not necessary to change trauma or pain, why am I a somatic healer? Why bother to support people to heal their body-contractions? I have many reasons. Compassion is one. Maybe I can relieve someone’s suffering. Suffering is temporary, but it’s real. Even if I cannot help someone change their situation, I don’t want them to suffer alone. Another reason is that I love healing work. It is a fulfilling and fun role to play—as good a role as any in this life of form. So why not be a healer?

And there is no contradiction here: while healing work is practiced within finite space and time, it simultaneously unfolds in the infinite and eternal dimensions. In other words, when we heal trauma in ourselves, we are healing our ancestors and our descendents. We carry the trauma of our ancestors with us, so healing our trauma now heals them too. Similarly, our personal and social trauma will be transferred to the next generation if we do not heal it in ourselves. Finally, any healing we complete makes it easier for everyone everywhere who suffers from the same issues that we do.

All of the above arguments apply to social change work or any transformative vocation.

Most important of all, healing work and the vast outlook mutually support one another. At its best, healing work of any kind re-creates the conditions conducive to melting the ice of trauma and chronic pain. The conditions that are conducive to melting pain and trauma in the body include: compassion, acceptance, appreciation, gratitude, persistence and patience. This leads us back to the vast view, which affords us infinite space, time, humor, wonder, and respect for the preciousness of life. Embracing a vast view creates the conditions for healing trauma and pain in the body.

When these conditions are present, it is more likely that body armoring and pain will soften or disappear, and that our rigid, traumatized identities will relax. This softening process makes way for more aliveness, fluidity and agency to show up in our lives. Some of these shifts can seem miraculous, but they are as natural as ice melting. When I am blessed to witness my client’s pain or trauma contractions starting to soften and heal, it transforms me as well. The dissolving of long-held trauma symptoms is a tap on the shoulder, waking us up to the fluidity of matter. If we pay attention, these healing moments remind us that we are spacious beings, constantly co-creating with the love that infuses and creates and dissolves all things.

In the vast slow-mo expanse of emptiness-eternity, there is no hurry—we have all the time in the world, and all is well. Life is a flowing river, and we are being carried along it. May all of us enjoy the journey.

Maybe you would like to be able to receive appreciation or praise, or enjoy a beautiful moment, but you cannot seem to “let it in.” Perhaps you want to feel and express healthy anger, but somehow your anger always turns into sadness. Or maybe you feel numb in threatening situations, when an alarmed self-protective response would serve you better. Do you try hard to sustain the excitement and motivation to complete your projects, but find yourself falling into depression or boredom?

Often, our bodies have learned to automatically cut-off certain feelings and sensations. It’s like those light switches that shut off after 10 minutes. Or maybe we cannot find the “on” switch at all. How frustrating. But we can change this situation. We can re-train our bodies to allow those feelings back into our lives. Before we get to the “how” of that, we need to approach our bodies with the right attitude: our bodies are always paying attention to our environment, and doing their best to take care of us. The body always has a good reason for shutting down feelings or sensations.

For example, those of us who repeatedly endure oppressive insults or violence from employers, caregivers, police, social-service agencies (or anyone with power over our lives) because of our gender identity, race, economic situation, disability, etc. know how dangerous it can be to respond with anger. So our perceptive bodies may decide to stifle any anger that arises. This is an intelligent survival strategy, but like all survival strategies, it has side effects. When it is finally safe to reclaim and express our anger—which is inseparable from our vitality–we may not be able to find the “on” button. We are not free to feel that anger fully.

Shutting down anger to survive oppression might make sense to you, but why would someone stifle excitement? One of my coaching clients had this problem. He would get distracted whenever he started to feel excited about anything. As we listened to his body together, he gradually remembered a time when he was in second grade, about to perform in his first school play. His parents had promised to come watch; he was so proud and excited. But they never showed up, and he was crushed. This memory led to other memories of getting excited and being let down by his family. This little boy learned that excitement was followed by heartbreaking disappointment. Eventually, his body automatically stifled any joy or excitement before he could get hurt. It was pretty smart for a kid to figure this out. But now as an adult it was limiting him. He knew he loved his partner, and they both wanted to build a life together. But he could not feel or express his excitement, and his partner was feeling rejected.

Our bodies figure out how to stop sensations as well as feelings. If you have an old injury or chronic pain, you might habitually “blank out” that area of your body. This is an intelligent way to cope with pain, but like all survival strategies, it has side effects, such as reducing the blood flow to that part of the body. And some survivors of sexual abuse or sexual assault find it difficult to sustain sexual pleasure, because–in order to survive abuse–their bodies learned to numb all the sensations—the bad and the good–in their genitals.

All of the above situations represent the strategic survival choices that traumatized bodies can make. Even if you cannot remember the origin story of your own automatic “shut down” habit, you can assume that it began because your body decided it was too dangerous or painful to experience that sensation.

If the brain stem has already decided—years ago–that certain feelings are off-limits, how do we restore our choice? How do we give our bodies permission to feel what we want to feel? You probably have noticed that it doesn’t work to tell yourself: “Okay, I am going to take that compliment in.” Or, “It is okay for me to feel angry. I should feel angry!” Words are not enough. To grant ourselves the permission to feel, we need to talk directly to our reptile brain (the brainstem), because that is where the original “shut-down” survival decision was made. We need to speak to the reptile-brain in its own language: the language of sensation.

One way to gradually increase our capacity or tolerance for those disavowed feelings is to practice something I call warming up your feeling balloon. Let’s say you have a balloon you want to fill up with air. You know that if you attach it to a helium canister and fill it up too much, too fast, it will burst. So instead, you warm the balloon in your hands, stretch it out gently, and slowly send air into the balloon, little by little. You give it time to get used to the air it is already holding before filling it some more. Soon you have a big, full, sturdy balloon that will last.

In a similar way, here’s how to warm up your feeling balloon:

• First pick a feeling or sensation you want to work with. What emotion do you want to fill your feeling balloon with? What sensation do you want to be able to feel fully?
“I want to feel happy.”

• Think of something that reminds you of that feeling.
“I feel happy when my dog greets me in the morning.”

• Notice the sensations associated with that feeling—where do you feel them in your body? Focus in on sensory impressions or images such as temperature, color, texture, mood, size, movement, or stillness. It doesn’t have to make sense. The language of sensation has its own sense.
“My dog is happy to see me, I see his bright eyes and wagging body…a warm feeling fills my chest, like the sun.”

• Now that you know what and where the sensation is, find a way to remind yourself of this feeling. Find a word, or an image, or a story that will help you return to it. Now you are ready to start warming up your feeling balloon.

• Each day, spend some time recalling that feeling. Feel it vividly in your body.*

• Start small: put limits on your practice, so your body doesn’t stretch too much, too fast:

o Limit the amount of time you spend in the sensations. Start with five or ten seconds, 3 minutes, or whatever feels easy.

o Limit the intensity of the feeling. “I feel a little spot of warmth in my chest” or “On a happiness scale of one to ten, I am feeling a three.”

• Practice with your whole attention. Feel the sensations as fully as you can, then when times up, stop! Put your attention somewhere else. Distract yourself.

• Then, notice and tell yourself, “Hey, I felt that and nothing bad happened.” or,
“I felt those sensations and nobody got mad at me.” or, “I felt that feeling and nobody got hurt.”

• The key to this practice is to start small, build slowly, and repeat often.

• Be patient. Remember, you are warming and stretching your sensation balloon slowly so it can permanently hold more feeling.

*[If you don’t want to conjure up a feeling, you can still practice warming up your feeling balloon by noticing the smaller, subtle feelings that spontaneously show up during your day. For example, if you want to build your capacity to feel anger, you can start small by working with irritation. For some people, irritation is a less-threatening version of anger. When it comes up, where do you feel it in your body? Really feel it for a moment, then stop. Notice that nothing bad happened. Repeat this every time something irritates you.]

With practice, you will gradually be able to increase the intensity and duration of the feeling or sensation while your body continues to feel safe. With even more time and repetition, your body will begin to appreciate the benefits of feeling this sensation, and will start choosing to feel it.

When you can choose to feel your sensations, your anger (or joy or excitement) balloon will be a true party balloon–for your own celebration. Now you’ve taken your body back! You’ve taken your feelings back! The freedom to feel—fully—is your birthright, and something to celebrate.

Each workshop experience combines somatic practices, theory & discussion, inviting your body & mind to collaborate & discover powerful new ways to be. You will receive individual attention that meets you where you are & take away personally meaningful insights & useful skills.

Saturday February 18, 4:00-7:00 PM

DIY Heal Trauma & Oppression In Your Body

Learn key trauma-healing principles so you can plan a realistic healing path; learn & practice tools to support & sustain your personal healing process.

Sunday March 18, noon-3:00 PM
How Oppression Shows Up in Our Bodies

How internalized oppression & internalized dominance show up in our bodies & communities; how to recognize, honor & adapt your inherited ancestral survival strategies to support resilient social change work.

Wednesday, April 18, 6:30-9:30 PM
Emotional First Aid for Stressful Situations

Practical tools to soothe & center yourself or others when you are “triggered.” Build trust & rapport with people who have experienced trauma & oppression.

Friday, May 18, 6:30-9:30 PM
Embody Your Allyship & Recycle Your Privilege for Social Change

Learn to lovingly own & make use of your (race, class, gender, sexual, ability, etc.) privilege. Build compassionate social justice community; staying present to the embodied experience of privilege so you can use it for social change; learn how to transform obstacles into authentic, passionate allyship.

Monday, June 18, 6:30-9:30 PM
Your Healing Hands: Energy Healing for Self & Others

A hands-on workshop. Learn how to keep yourself grounded & your boundaries clear while supporting someone’s healing. Soften pain & energy blocks; discover & express your unique healing gifts.

Wednesday, July 18, 6:30-9:30 PM
Take Care of You & Sustain Your Organization

Learn resilient responses to the stress & vicarious trauma associated with social service & social change work. Bring easy-to-learn, practical tools into your workplace to renew and restore staff & sustain your important work.

Workshop fee: $50
Space is limited.

To reserve your spot, send your registration questions (below) to vanissar@cs.com, and a $25 deposit check to Vanissar Tarakali, 469 49th St. Oakland CA 94609. Or paypal $27 (deposit + paypal fee) to vanissar@cs.com

Registration Questions:

1. Contact information: Name/Address/phone/email

2. How did you hear about the workshop?

3. What are you hoping to get out of the workshop?

Vanissar Tarakali, Ph.D. offers learn-through-the-body workshops & coaching for people who are transforming our world. She teaches how to collaborate wisely with our bodies to transform trauma & sustain social change. Former Healing Oppression Project co-lead at CUAV & current DiversityWorks trainer, Vanissar passionately practices Generative Somatics, Intuitive Reading, Energy Bodywork & Tibetan Buddhism.

to schedule a coaching session or workshop Contact Vanissar at (510) 594-6812 or vanissar@vanissar.com
www.vanissar.com Facebook: Tarakali Education

Every 3rd of the month

(Extra drop-in on February 29 replaces March session.)

Intuitive Reading schedule: February 3, April 3, June 3

Somatic Coaching schedule: February 29, May 3, July 3

Location: Temescal, North Oakland. RSVP for directions to
vanissar@cs.com or (510) 594-6812

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TARAKALI EDUCATION DROP IN COACHING

Wednesday, February 29: 7:00-9:00 pm Thursday, May 3: 7:00-9:00 pm Tuesday, July 3: 7:00-9:00 pm

Learn-Through-the-Body coaching sessions for healing & social change

Each session includes:

• Somatic tools to support creativity, healing & social change
• Embodied coaching from Vanissar
• Q & A time
• Suggested donation: $10-$40 (no one turned away for lack of funds).

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TARAKALI EDUCATION DROP IN INTUITIVE READINGS

Friday, February 3: 7:00-9:00 pm
Tuesday, April 3: 7:00-9:00 pm
Sunday, June 3: 5:00-7:00 pm

Each session includes:

• Grounding meditation
• Intuitive readings* from Vanissar
• Suggested donation: $10-$40 (no one turned away for lack of funds).

*Intuitive readings are opportunities to receive a download of information–read directly from your energy field–that offers you refreshing and unexpected insights. You are welcome to bring Vanissar your questions about life decisions, chronic issues or places you feel stuck in your life.

Vanissar is an advanced student of Phyllis Pay & the Intuitive Energy Center.

Intuitive Reading Testimonials:

• I went to Vanissar Tarakali for two sessions of intuitive reading. Her assessment of my life process (where I am at, where I had been, what I am moving towards) was remarkably accurate, insightful, and illuminating. I have been practicing body-mind self healing for many years and Vanissar’s lessons have enriched my on-going practice. I have integrated what I learned from her — both the body awareness techniques and the intuitive insights — with my daily healing practice. Vanissar is gentle, honest, empathic and respectful and I highly recommend her to all who wish to expand their present moment awareness of their mind-body and to acquire greater clarity and insight about their life process. Thank you Vanissar!
– Ishita

• Vanissar is highly intuitive, caring and wise. She quickly described some of my traits in a way I hadn’t thought of before. I immediately saw that her perspective was accurate. Vanissar’s awareness was very helpful to me.
She also provided some information about my deceased mother. I recommend Vanissar highly.
– Deborah

Quantum physics and many spiritual traditions tell us that matter is not solid. It is malleable energy. If we can tap into this energetic level of reality, we can shift the processes in our bodies remarkably quickly. At the same time, matter IS solid on another level. We are both, in the same way that light is a both a particle and a wave, depending on the circumstances. It all depends upon what level you are tapping into.

In my experience, being on the verge of illness usually includes some component of emotional/somatic information (as well as viral, bacterial, etc). One way to view this is that your body has a story that insists on being heard. So when you are ill, you can assume that something important—something that your being cares about deeply–is trying to express itself through the symptoms.

Something amazing becomes possible when we give ourselves permission to unplug from clock-time, obligations and tasks—even for two hours–and allow ourselves to surrender completely to feeling and expressing the sensations of illness. We can do this by resting, crying, journaling, yelling, emoting (without judging or censoring what emotions are coming out) dancing, singing, drawing, painting, etc.

When we let go of our agenda to “feel better” or “hurry up and get better” and simply let the sensations speak their truth; when we can suspend the need to “make sense” or be “rational;” we invite transformation and healing. Often once the body’s story is fully told and the body feels “heard” the symptoms of illness resolve and disappear, sometimes in minutes or hours.

Of course, such physical resolution does not always occur. The layers of a chronic or serious illness can be decades old and profound, and may take a great deal of time and energy to heal—we might need to set aside time each day for this process. Sometimes complete healing requires more time and energy than we have left.

When illness is related to trauma, the most intolerable aspects of that trauma may be too much for us to face and express alone. Perhaps our healing requires relationship and community—maybe asking for help is the kind of healing we need the most.

Finally, there is the Mysterious aspect of healing: we may long for physical healing, but we cannot control life; sometimes instead of bodily healing, we receive insight, wisdom, compassion, or a deep empathy with the suffering of all beings. In any case, allowing and expressing whatever sensations and feelings we can access on our own usually does no harm and some good.

If you want to experiment with this approach, here is what I recommend: next time you are feeling ill, and you can spare a couple of hours (or perhaps your body has already forced you to give it your full attention!), “try on” the notion that your body is trying to express something important. Drop everything and set the intention of listening to your sensations with your entire heart and mind. Listen and express (emote, write, sing, dance, etc.) for a couple of hours.

If you don’t know where to start, a good way is to describe your sensations (not your opinions or interpretations about your sensations!) by writing or talking or making up a song on the spot: “My tummy hurts, oh it hurts, and I don’t like it, and I have things to do, things to do, and I am frustrated, and my tummy hurts, oh yes it does..” etc. Point at your tummy, rub your tummy, wave your arms, etc. Do not censor yourself, instead just follow and express the sensations and moods as they unfold: “I feel silly doing this, I feel silly, and my tummy hurts…blah blah blah.”

If this is not something you have time to do in the moment, then talk to your body and promise it you will attend to this later, after you have taken care of your immediate tasks.
Pick a time when you can set aside time/space to deeply listen to attend to your body, promise your body you will do it then, and follow through! Our bodies can be very forgiving and understanding when we demonstrate our trustworthiness by following through.

Does this resonate with your own experience of illness?
I invite you to share your comments and stories.

-Anam Thubten

Hey folks, I wanted to share this with you, as it pertains to many social change movements beyond the Occupy Movement. Enjoy.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE OCCUPY(DECOLONIZE) OAKLAND COMMUNITIES

Dear OO Communities:

I am proud to live in Oakland, home of Occupy/Decolonize Oakland.
I have been taking in so many sights, sounds and words of people taking to the streets with passion and love, meditating

and marching,

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150513659488362&set=a.10150513659243362.463601.521773361&type=1&theater

GA-ing and healing, and loving one another. It is dizzying, inspiring, overwhelming, so much so that it has been hard for me to gather my thoughts, much less to write anything.

But I have something I really need to say.

I am thrilled by the Occupy/Decolonize movements, and especially touched and thrilled by Occupy Oakland—one of the most diverse [on so many levels!] Occupy camps in the USA. And like so many others, I wonder what will come next.

This weekend the Oakland Police issued eviction notices to Occupy Oakland [for the second time a police raid seems imminent], and I fear for the safety of everyone there. And in the midst of this suspense, I keep hearing about and reading of the violence vs. nonviolence debate unfolding at OO. I have been reading dozens of posts and emails with increasing concern and dismay.

I am not an organizer, so I say this with humility, but it seems to me that violence as a deliberate strategy often ends up with the most marginalized folks getting hit with an even more violent backlash from the state. I feel a wise direction might lie in the terrain that lies between the two articles pasted at the end of this letter. Or perhaps those people who are committed to avoiding violent tactics at all cost, and those who are open to using violence as one of a range of tactics form two explicitly separate affinity groups. Since I am not an organizer or an activist, I will stop there.

But I am a healer, and I can speak to this issue as a healer:

As a trauma healer I have been taught to “blend with” and support and deeply respect people’s survival strategies [which arise from reptilian brain survival wisdom and include fight, flight, freeze, appease, dissociate etc] first before I nudge them to try out new, non-reactive, creative-power strategies. The traumatized body will not let go of an old strategy until it feels there is a safe, supportive, reliable alternative.

http://www.vanissar.com/blog/from-victim-body-to-creative-body/

I believe this is true on a collective level as well. For communities that have faced/continue to face such unrelenting social trauma of racism, poverty, police violence, etc.,

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=281860191854121

sometimes the fight response has been the only way to survive and maintain heart, dignity and sanity. As long as we collectively allow the corporations and banks to steal people’s jobs and homes; as long as we allow the state to brutalize people for standing up against basic injustice, then we have NOT yet created the conditions for people’s reptilian brains to retire. The 99%–especially the most disenfranchised portion of the 99%–are not safe right now. Not even close.

By the same token, sometimes the appease/placate response (to the powers that be) is essential to survival. Depending on the situation and the resources at hand, there is wisdom in both fighting and appeasing.

So the paradox is, as collective-trauma healers, if we want to de-escalate the knee-jerk trauma response of fight, flight, freeze, etc., we need to say “yes” to it. “Yes, reptilian brain, I see you are trying to protect me/us. Thank you. Good job.” We cannot skip this step. That means allowing swift reactive “fight” impulses to exist, as well as swift reactive appease impulses to exist. And taking time to appreciate what they are trying to do for us.

Then we can say, to our bodies and lizard brains: “Right now in this moment, I/we are safe, and you can relax and take a break. I’ve got this.” And encourage our bodies to really take in and shore up these moments of safety, or a supportive atmosphere, however brief. Practicing feeling safe begins to reshape our brains so that they can sustain relaxed, resilient states, even in a crisis. This enables us to reflect before we take our next steps.

Because our survival impulses are urgent and automatic, the challenge is to slow down and be aware of them and see where they are taking us.

I have found that opposing the “fight” impulse [or any lizard brain response] just riles up the reptilian brain more. I suspect this is true on a group/community/movement level as well. If it is true, then how might we invite those who see violence as a potential tactic* to engage in the kind of strategy that Starhawk describes (in the article below)? Not by “opposing” violence. Instead we need to respect and make space for the survival strategy of “fight” by appreciating the intention behind it. [And appreciating the ancestors who helped us be here today by fighting.] In the context of structural violence and scarce resources, fighting is an intelligent and life-affirming response!

And if we perceive nonviolence-only stances as appeasing* the state (or at the very least, oblivious to the extremely violent conditions that marginalized communities endure daily), how can we invite nonviolent direct action proponents to incorporate the perspectives of homeless people and poor and working class communities of color into their strategies? Not by denouncing them. Instead we need to respect and make space for the survival strategy of “appease” by appreciating the intention behind it [and appreciating how many communities have used "appease" to survive and regroup and gradually build power]. In a context of scarce options and resources, appeasing can be intelligent and life-affirming.

*At this point I want to apologize for generalizing or misrepresenting anyone here. I am responding to the posts I have read, many of which are polarized. I realize that activist views and behaviors include more nuances and shades of grey than I describe above. For example, I am aware that nonviolent direct action as a comprehensive approach to change is NOT grounded in reactivity, but in resilient creativity. And I am aware that the South African anti-apartheid movement won the struggle by using a savvy, timely, creative mix of both nonviolent and violent strategies. However, I need to speak up when I witness many goodhearted people speaking, writing and acting from their lizard brains, and mutually triggering one other’s escalating sense of urgency and threat.

We CAN choose to appreciate the love and care inherent in each survival strategy. [We all are coming from caring about fairness and kindness.] Basic body wisdom and trauma-healing wisdom tells us that when we as individual bodies and we as groups of bodies receive respect and appreciation, when we feel safe and held and seen in our totality, when we feel others have our back, THEN the reptilian brain can relax and other creative, more reflective, collaborative responses and parts of our brains can move in. Then we can listen, dialogue, be receptive, co-create.

If the violence vs. nonviolence discussion ends up being governed by our lizard brains, then it will become a polarized, reactive debate that makes all of us vulnerable to breakdowns, divisions, splintering, in-fighting, intrigue, foggy thinking, bad decisions, etc.

An alternative is to listen deeply to one another, appreciating the biological wisdom of ALL of our survival strategies: fighting to survive, appeasing the powers that be to survive, freezing and becoming invisible to survive, avoiding or running away to survive, and “checking out” to survive.

We all have soft animal bodies that get scared. We can treat our animal bodies with tenderness and respect. We can find a way to create contexts where everyone’s reptilian brains feel safe enough to soften our stances long enough to build mutual trust and consensus strategy.

I know I am asking alot: I know it is ambitious to try to create space for radical non-duality in a crisis. It will take enormous strength and determination. We will need all the experienced meditators, and mediators that we can get in on this project! [and I know a few if you need some names; and I myself am willing and available to help train people to work skillfully with their reactive reptilan brains]. But I feel this path is essential for a sustainable movement or movements.

thanks for listening,

Vanissar

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Here are two very different pieces that touch on strategy; I feel are both important to this dialogue:

http://hyphenatedrepublic.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/what-violence-isnt/

http://starhawksblog.org/?p=675

Also, it is important when a group is just beginning to look at race and cultural competency issues that separate space be provided for white people and people of color to learn about and heal from racism, because they have different needs:

People of color at first, need to heal from internalized racism by finding their voices, telling their stories, expressing anger and hurt about racism, and be listened to with respect and believed.

White people at first, need to heal from racism by learning how racist ways of thinking and behaving were taught to them as “normal” when they were too young to resist. They need a chance to understand, in a compassionate, non-blaming environment, what racism is and how it works.

At the beginning of the learning process, the needs of these two different groups do not fit together well. They often clash.

For example, a Latino friend of mine who participated in a mixed group (people of color/white people) racism discussion ended up being deeply upset, angry and appalled to hear his white friends talk in what seemed to him a callous, abstract and self-absorbed way about racism—when racism was a daily, up close and personal painful reality for him. He told me later he would never again sit with white people who were just beginning to look at and discuss racism. So it can be harmful or hurtful for a person of color to sit in a room with white people doing their initial, beginning unlearning racism work.

In the same way, white people can feel attacked and blamed when people of color express their legitimate anger about racism. White people deserve to be treated with compassion as they begin to unpack stereotypes. But it is not fair to ask people of color to listen and provide this compassion, just like it wouldn’t be fair for queer folks to comfort and forgive straight people who are expressing homophobic and transphobic stereotypes. Similarly, white people’s desire to resolve racial guilt or shame by confessing their wrongs and being forgiven is incompatible with the need of peoples of color to put themselves first, and to stop caretaking white people.

So separate healing work can prepare us all for the second stage when people of color and whites can build interracial trust and communication, and to collaborate. If this preparation is done, the interracial collaboration will be real, heartfelt, and sustainable.

So repeated practice is really important. Dr. Richard Schmidt writes in Motor Learning that we need to repeat a new physical behavior 300-500 times to create a new motor pattern in our bodies, and 3000-5000 times to replace an entrenched motor pattern with a new one.

Those of us who love routine find it easy to practice the same thing every day at the same time. But some of us–like me—cannot seem to meditate each day at 6 AM! And many of us have crazy schedules; we work long hours and juggle kids, parents, debts and pets. How do we practice something 300-3000 times, so that it becomes embodied?

The best way is to gradually woo ourselves (as in “court, send flowers”, etc.) into a new practice relationship.

Here’s what I suggest:

· Pick a practice that you want to get good at. Maybe you want to experience gratitude each day. Or maybe you want to criticize yourself less, appreciate yourself more. Perhaps you want to be more relaxed. Maybe you want to walk or dance or rest more. [For other ideas on what to practice, see my December 2010 blog Emotional First Aid practices at www.vanissar.com]

· Pay attention to your body sensations. This is crucial! Make sure that whatever you practice, you pay attention to the sensations in your body: Sensation is the language of bodily transformation. In order to change something, in order to heal, you need to feel.

· Keep it brief! At first, practice for very brief periods of time. 5 seconds. 1 minute. 5 minutes. Then stop.

· Do it again. Repeat your practice several times a day, whenever you remember to. Each time you practice, even for a few seconds, you bring your attention to the new behavior, which means it will gradually get easier to remember.

· Appreciate yourself! At the end of the day, notice how many times you thought about the practice or practiced it; and appreciate yourself for your effort.

· Don’t give up! Keep inviting yourself to practice again. Each time you practice, your body becomes increasingly convinced that nothing bad is going to happen—that this practice is a safe thing to do. Remember to appreciate yourself for practicing.

· Keep going! Eventually your body will discover the benefits of the practice, and it will become magnetic–something you longto do. You will find yourself doing it more often–and spontaneously!–for longer periods of time.

· Like drops of water dripping into a cup, you will be amazed at how quickly all these brief practices add up to 300 or 3000 times.

Humans work the same way as Primordial Awareness: we too are creators, even when we face trauma. Trauma stimulates us to contract our bodies and minds into self-protective shapes. As children, when we encounter danger (physical or emotional) or harm we find just the right body positions and behaviors that will help us get through our particular situation.

This is a creative act. Maybe we freeze and tighten our throats to stop from crying out—because we have learned that we will be safer. Maybe we get into the habit of constantly changing our position (physically or mentally), because we are less of a target that way. Some of us may even have (intelligently) chosen to use our creative power to take on a powerless identity, because that was the only way we could find to receive approval, or minimize abuse. We repeat these successful strategies until they become automatic, and this is good, because survival is crucial. Unfortunately, by the time the danger has passed, we have forgotten how and why we turned to these strategies in the first place. Like Primordial Awareness, we have amnesia.

Humans tend to continue our automatic behaviors, even when we are older and have more options; even when these behaviors no longer work and get in our way. Staying silent doesn’t work when we need to advocate for ourselves or others. Changing our location or mind all the time makes it difficult to complete projects or make commitments. Once we notice these side effects, we may try to change the old behaviors and stances, but it’s not easy. We may feel stuck, frustrated, at war with ourselves.

The good news is that any shape or identity we habituate to, even a “powerless” one, is actually an expression of our power. It means that at some point, in order to be safe or loved or both, our organism made a powerful choice to shape ourselves. Like the creative Primordial Awareness that has forgotten itself, we forget that we are using our own energy and power to maintain ourselves in a powerless position, behaving in powerless ways. We are so used to making this effort, we no longer notice it. Instead it feels like it is being done to us.

It is helpful to think of our habitual postures and behaviors as water that has become ice. Like water, our creative power is inherently fluid. But once it freezes into a solid habitual shape, it forgets its fluid nature. In other words, we forget that we contracted at some point, and are now automatically maintaining that contraction. We forget that, just as ice melts into water, we can soften, let go, and expand once more.

When we blame ourselves for this solidity, we reject our own energy. Struggling against ourselves to change ourselves doesn’t work. What works is remembering that we creatively adapted to specific traumatic situations in the past. What works is harnessing this same creative power to sculpt our current lives. How do we remember and reclaim this power? Through the body.

Trauma healing work that works with the body reconnects us to our original, intelligent survival choices. It allows us to directly experience–in our bodies, in our cells, and tissues and sensations–our original choices, and our inherent power to create something new now. It helps us appreciate and forgive our creative choices, begin to re-shape ourselves, and make new, powerful, creative choices. Like ice slowly melting, trauma contractions gradually soften in the body, freeing up energy to create what we want, to sculpt ourselves into new identities.

Somatic work (Generative Somatics, Somatic Experiencing, etc.), expressive arts (dance, song, art, writing, theater, etc.) and meditation practices–as long as they engage the body and incorporate both safety and gradual risk-taking– can support the trauma healing journey, and reconnect us to our innate creative power. I invite us all to tap into our playful awareness. To be audacious, curious, and hopeful. May all beings reclaim our creative power.