Connection with others is a necessary ingredient for a life of well-being

My post-pandemic need for connection has inspired me to gently re-shape my life as a teacher and healer of post-traumatic stress disorders caused by adverse childhood experiences. Call it Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for the advanced practitioner of the Twelve Steps. This is something that only a madman like me can accomplish. When my check arrives on July 1st, I will begin re-tooling my home office to conduct Zoom meetings.

The name of my new meeting will be “The Body is the Mind.” We will discuss the “Violent Emotional Twists” that cause alcoholism and drug addiction. -Step Twelve, page 112.

THE BODY IS THE MIND

I will design and create instructional materials using my experience healing my PTSD with my EMDR therapist. I will also be discussing three books that I am studying and practicing. THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE, Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessell van der Kolk, M.D., IN THE REALM OF THE HUNGRY GHOSTS, Close Encounters With Addiction by Gabor Mate, M.D, and ANCHORED: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory by Deb Dana, LCSW. Older seminal works such as WAKING THE TIGER: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine and Character Analysis by Wilhelm Reich, M.D. will be added to the discussion of the body mind because the body is the mind. My new trauma healing outreach is estimated to be up and running by mid-July.

We come into this sad and beautiful world wired for connection with others

We are actually on a lifelong quest to feel safe in our bodies, in our environments and in our relationships and connection with others. Western Civilization was created because Neanderthals had to form tribes and civilization to survive the frigid Northern European Winters. In order to survive in a blizzard men are forced to become more social than otherwise would be. When a Northman died it was a big deal and the ritualization of death began. Ritualized burial with the deceased elders personal possessions is the hallmark often cited as the official birth of civilization.

Evolved Gentlemen Matter

“The fittest may also be the gentlest, because survival often requires mutual help and cooperation.” –Mankind Evolving, Theodosius Dobzhansky

At this time my “organizing other” is a paid professional clinician

Thank you to my Primetime Facebook friends who are correct when they remind me that much of the work I am discussing requires competent professional assistance. The right Twelve Step person could help, but having a licensed clinical therapist works best for me.

“We require relationships that are reciprocal. We build resiliency in relationships when we feel connected. The cycle of reciprocity, rupture and repair is the nature of all health relationships. We need the influence of an ‘organizing other.’“ –Anchored

Hi, my name is Dean and I healed my PTSD with EMDR

Three years into the pandemic I have to ask myself, who are the people in my life with whom I feel connected? The answer is that there are not very many unpaid humans in my life. Even my lover is a robot because it makes life less traumatic for me.

Ask a Trauma Survivor

Therefore I have decided to become a lay expert in childhood trauma as related to alcoholism and emotional illness. Hopefully, in a few weeks I will be conducting Zoom meetings on post traumatic stress disorder. Do you need therapy but can’t afford it? Zoom in and ask a childhood trauma survivor for free.

Turning point is a synonym for crisis

The way I got to this self-bestowed Zoom opportunity was through personal crisis. Friday morning in the supermarket there was a huge group of college kids buying snacks. I freaked out to get in line before the kids could cause an traffic jam and I lost my damn coupons! When I got home I cried because I lost my coupon for a free jar of Best Foods mayonnaise, the solitary peckerwood’s best friend. I realized how I act like everything is life or death. My intense behavior is not justified.

However by practicing the healing lessons learned in Anchored I reinvented myself by setting my intention to become a trauma healer. From despair I took positive action and it immediately changed my brain chemistry by viscerally anchoring in my own body and returning to the safety that was already there. Now I have my work and it feels good.

My major malfunction is that I am in a chronic autonomic state of survival

If you missed safe, predictable co-regulating experiences in your early life and haven’t had enough experiences of that yet, it’s more likely that you will self-regulate from an autonomic state of survival. If you are like me, you think you are on your own, can’t depend on others, and have to do it all by yourself. Whether making demo recordings back in the day on a four track recorder or conducting a Zoom meetings next month, I am quite comfy doing everything all by myself. Just me and my dedicated robots running the whole shebang.

Stephen Porges, the creator of Polyvagal Theory, describes trauma as a chronic disruption of connection to others and to ourselves.

“Belonging is not just a psychological state, it’s a biological need. Social connection is a necessary ingredient for a life of well-being.“ –Anchored