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Body-Mind-Spirit Approaches
to Relieving Post-Traumatic Stress
4 Thursdays starting February 7, 2002, 6:30pm-8:30pm
A workshop at Lifeart Community Resource Center, Keene, NH
This workshop is open to all persons, age 16 and over. To preserve the safety of the group experience, the class will be closed to new
participants after Week 2 (February 14). No new participants will be allowed into the class after that date.
Please bring a notebook and pen.
You may enroll on February 7 at the beginning of the workshop. Workshop enrollment is free. However, we will "pass the basket" for
donations to LifeArt Center, to help pay for the use of the space, and to support their community outreach programs.
The workshop is facilitated by John-Michael Dumais of Keene. For more information, call (603) 357-5848. Or click on the links below.
Brief Overview
Trauma affects everyone. The traumatizing images we see on TV, and what we experience adn witness personally, are all recorded by the
body-mind as "moments of powerlessness." These moments are frozen in our nervous systems until such time as we are able to access our inner resources and return ourselves to a feeling of safety and trust.
Our past experiences of trauma can be triggered by present experiences, calling up all the anger, powerlessness, sadness or despair that is still locked inside.
Traumas are a natural results of the body-mind's efforts to protect itself from overwhelming experiences. At the core of all trauma is the
thought, "I can't survive this." And so, part of our mind splits off, encapsulating the experience as a pain, tension, or some other symptom lodged in the body. When we are ready to reclaim our full health
and wholeness, we can unlock or "decode" such trauma imprints and, using our powers of active imagination, insight, love, and creativity, we can free the part of us who felt s/he could not survive.
How do we access these resources for self-healing? Einstein said that a problem cannot be solved at the level it was created. How this
relates to trauma is that once our past trauma states are triggered, we often find it difficult to help ourselves, to climb out of the hole of the emotional and mential responses associated with the trauma. So this
implies that we have to access higher resources, parts of ourselves which are whole, connected, and creative.
There are many ways to access our natural resourceful states, but boiled down to a simple concept, I hold that is involves remembering and
reclaiming our spiritual connection -- the part of us that is whole, trusting, creative, and connected. Among the many ways to access our spiritual energy, there is prayer (especially active, contemplative prayer),
singing, chanting, drumming, journaling, meditation, process work, dreamwork, breathing, movement, art, healing energy, group sharing, and so on.
One does not need to espouse any particular faith or teaching in order to access ones inner resources, but simply to have faith and to be
willing to playfully experiment. Creating safety for the traumatized parts of ourselves is ultimately an inside job. As we connect to and heal these inner dimensions of experience, we will come to realize that true
safety does not depend on our outer experiences.
Post-Traumatic Stress On the Web
Holistic Online
National Center for PTSD
PTSD Alliance
The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Coping with Personal and National Trauma, by Brent Baum
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