brain

from The Body Keeps the Score--Van Der Kolk

This quote from The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk, among so many others in this book, jumped out at me. In my work with parents who have a child living with ongoing health issues, I offer readings and writing prompts and opportunities to connect their emotions with new thinking. It has been my work now for several years, to investigate and create writing exercises that do not merely re-stimulate traumatic experiences but help us to both contain, think about our experiences, and move forward in our lives.

It is my contention that parents of children with either acute or chronic health conditions, experience a form of traumatic stress which becomes post-traumatic stress as the years go on. Perhaps our child (and the mother) had a devastating birth experience that left her permanently effected developmentally. Or perhaps it took awhile for the health issue to show up and be diagnosed, during which time we may have not been able to get doctors to take symptoms we observed, seriously. Or perhaps our child simply came down with an obvious but incurable disease and we are coping as best we can with the day to day effects. Whatever the causes, reasons or actual illnesses or disabilities, we parents experience some commonalities. Chief among them is grief, anger, guilt, sometimes depression and /or, despair. Likely our sleep, our eating, our work, family and social lives have also been greatly impacted.

In my new writing groups, parents may be in a supportive community for the first time. They often need to “tell their story” to some extent. I try to keep this aspect both possible and limited. As I have come to understand, and as Van Der Kolk says, telling the story doesn’t usually change how we physically experience the trauma. (Van Der Kolk’s subjects are those who have experienced direct trauma through abuse, violence, war or deprivation of some sort. Yet, I believe many of his assertions apply equally to parents of children with ongoing health issues.)

How does writing change our brain chemistry and bodily responses? How and what we write is what I think is most important. The structure(s) of the group provide a holding environment from which we can begin to acknowledge our realities and explore new options. From the moment people walk in they will see tables and chairs in a circular or rectangular arrangement. There will be a couple of boxes of Kleenex on the tables and a separate table with snacks. I start each session letting everyone know, that I know there is a range of what we are all dealing with and that I believe we have commonalities and wisdom to share with each other. Before going around the room I ask everyone to sit, close their eyes and take a breathing “inventory” of how they are feeling, and what they are aware of in this moment.

I ask them to think of 3 words or images that might capture those experiences. I also ask them to think about their hopes and fears for this workshop. (It is important to limit their hopes and fears to this workshop time…it is too easy to worry about the future and agonize over the past. I want to bring people to this moment as best I can.) After a few minutes of inner contemplation I suggest they write their 3 words and hopes and fears. Later on, they will have a chance to share those if they choose. But they can also choose not to.

Then we go around the group and I ask for their names, their child’s name and age and just a little about what illness or disability they have. I try to limit them to 5 minutes. Sometimes, it is clear that people really need to share more and I gently suggest that we will have more time for sharing as the workshop progresses.

I will say more about the specifics of what kinds of readings and writing prompts I offer in another blog post. What I want folks to take away from these ideas so far, is how to provide a holding environment, a container, for the work to come. Building trust between me and the participants is important and I think having a clear structure is one of the building blocks of trust. The actual readings and writing prompts and how I structure the sharing moments and ask deepening questions are also part of the “holding.”

inner-outer landscape

Yesterday afternoon and into evening, I sat writing, next to a window with a view to the Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains. I seemed able to sit there for a long period of time, every once in awhile glancing up from my computer to note the trajectory of the sun and the corresponding shadows. I felt the heat from the sun reflecting off the water, and its shimmer. I worked on several poems and was aware of time only as the colors of the sky changed from blue to yellow-green to a deep orange.

It is easy to find a writing rhythm when I retreat to a place removed from the city. But I often take a walk in the city through a green-space or near a body of water when I come to an impasse in my writing and need new ideas.

Sometimes nature itself informs the words of my poems. I love the spiral patterns in a moon snail shell,

and the harmonic, Fibonacci sequence seen in sunflowers, or the eddies of water and sand. sand eddies

Nature’s effect on the brain and creativity has been the subject of research for a few years. Though many of us have understood intuitively the necessity and rewards of being outdoors, of hiking in the mountains or walking in a park or on a beach, we can now point to brain research that confirms this awareness. We might want this added information as we think about providing nature, or natural environments to people in the hospital. Or, knowing the way nature recharges our brains, lowering cortisol levels and stress, making it easier to learn, we can confirm the need for kids to be outside and around the natural world for some parts of their day. Richard Louv wrote about this 10 years ago in his book, Last Child in the Woods, and it is even more true today; we have a harder time disconnecting from our wired world.

Now, that you are finished reading, go for a walk!

Trauma, Writing, and the Brain-Part 1

Inner/Outer Landscapes