How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness - Peter Levine | The Embodiment Conference

[Music] welcome to the keynote stage so my name is Mark Walsh I'm the founder of this conference and part of the leadership team with Daniela and Manel we have got quite a feast quite a treat in stall for you the main stage doesn't have all the top names on some of them are spread out for various logistical reasons but there are some awesome presenters on this stage this stage is also sponsored by Alan Stefani when we first had the idea of getting sponsors I basically said I won't take anyone as a sponsor unless I love what they do because otherwise it doesn't have any Integrity for me I didn't know her L funny was but I met her in Berlin someone said oh she's an intimacy teacher she's ex sex worker bestselling author in Germany and I said okay well I'll meet her and I met her and as soon as I met her I felt at ease I felt like wow this is a person who's playful but also a deep listener this is a woman who's a real leader since I've seen her work uh with people in very you know around trauma around intimacy around very difficult areas men and women I've come to regard her as a friend actually like I love her so go to her website and check it out it's Alan i l n Stefani s t p ha n for November I alfani.com there's an offer there called love and rage which is as juicy as it sounds you'll also find links in the descriptions uh for the videos below welcoming pet LaVine one of the most established names in trauma education in the world author and absolute Legend frankly Peter welcome hi hello from from Maine so so um I understand a little bit about what the conference is um concerning but maybe if you give me a couple of little hints here and I'll take it sure pet so we've got until the hour and um the conference is for people interested in embodiment of all kinds we have many therapists yoga teachers meditation teachers dance teachers and uh people are extremely interested in trauma we have a wide variety of people completely new to trauma and experienced therapists and basically I know people are delighted to hear whatever you have to say about trauma so over to you sir okay well when I first started to developing somatic experiencing um I had the disadvantage no maybe the advantage of not knowing that trauma was supposed to be a brain disorder a brain disease that at best uh could be managed by changing one's thoughts or by using drugs and U so I was free to explore where my meanderings took me um one of the basic things again related to the idea of embodiment is that trauma is not just something that happens in the brain and the mind I mean it does of course it's something that happens throughout the whole organism but really it's primarily something that happens in the body and when we are traumatized when we are overwhelmed with threat and especially with Mortal threat life threat our body goes into a stereotype set of reactions so for example our shoulders tighten our Jaws tighten um we um we unable to breathe to to to take a deep breath and all of these things are again things that the body does and so what I discovered was that the way of healing trauma was to be able to find new experiences in our bodies experiences that specifically contradicted those of overwhelming helpless that is to say of trauma and uh one of the main things that happens in trauma is something that's called Association and the basic idea of dissociation is that dissociation is cutting off from our bodily experience and again that's what happens when we're overwhelmed we lose contact from the from the experience from the living body experience and we're cut a drift without a sense of Vitality of aliveness of capacity to be in the Here and Now the other side of this is that trauma when it's resolved can lead to transformative experiences which are rooted in the body um just want to make sure you're hearing me okay because I yeah okay good uh in 1969 uh a formative event occurred which really channeled the direction of my life uh I was developing in a series of um body awareness exercises to help people that had um high blood pressure and I discovered by helping them learn how to to um to release certain muscles in their jaw and their neck that often their blood pressures would go like from 160 to normal or even sometimes even greater and often this happened in one or two sessions but but some sometimes it took more well anyhow um a friend of mine a very dear friend and colleague Ed Jackson um he was a psychiatrist in Berkeley and he um he asked me to see a patient and he was referred to this patient uh by a another another physician uh and she had these all of these physical symptoms symptoms which we now would call fom myalgia irritable bowel chronic fatigue severe severe PMS migraines and so forth and so she was sent from from specialist to specialist and nothing could be found so finally they was they referred her to a psychiatrist my friend Ed and he tried her at that time if you can believe it there was one anti-depressant medication and one anti-anxiety medication and um the other thing that was associated with all of these physical symptoms was that she would be having panic attacks and was so afraid of having a panic attacks that she would stop even leaving her her house uh this called a gor phobia uh uh yeah and so they thought that at least if the medication would help reduce the anxiety maybe should be able to get some of her life back because her life was compressed to almost nothing by the way we'll call her Nancy so anyhow um Ed thought that maybe some of these exercises that I was developing would be helpful could be helpful so she came in and I could see from her kateed pulse her pulse was about 120 beats a minute she came in with her husband because she couldn't leave the house at all and even with her husband it was an ordeal and I could see that both of them were so um frightened and and um um you know of her with her total need for him and her and him for needing to take care of her so greatly anyhow uh I explained to them what I would be doing that I would be teaching her certain relaxation techniques involving body awareness and uh so I had her come into the Consulting room and she was laying on a on a mat mattress and uh I started to help her relax some of those muscles in in her neck and jaw and much to my happiness her heart rate started going down so it went from 120 to 110 90 880 and then at about 75 her pulse shot up way way up to about 160 beats a minute and not knowing what to do I did what probably is the stupidest thing that anybody would think to do and maybe you can guess what that is that was and I said Nancy you must relax you need to relax at that moment at that time her heart rate started going down again down to 120 to 110 100 90 80 70 60 then into the low 50s and she turned pale and I said I didn't have the words I said to myself I don't know what to do and I was even as I tell this you know this was how many this is 1969 I still got a little twinge in my chest just a small twinge and um and of course it moves through you know I mean you I do basic my basic embodiment SE practice and it's there and then it moves through so anyhow uh I saw at that trying moment uh I saw the image on the four far wall of the of the therapy room I saw a image of a tiger Crouch getting ready to spring and without not quite not knowing why I mean I after a bit it became clear to me but initially I didn't know why I said Nancy there's a tiger there's a tiger chasing you it's crouching it's chasing in you now run run climb those rocks and escape and as I said that I saw her body become even more Frozen and I said Nancy it's okay you can do it in other words I basically just encouraged her just feel your legs feel where there's any strength at all in your legs and just let your legs move you and when you come to this the rock wall climb sit on top and escape and so her body went through several cycles of gently shaking and trembling and sometimes her fingers would turn blue cold it's like she wasn't able to even get a breath then a spontaneous breath would occur and the fingers would become warmer then the whiteness in her face started to change with waves of good normal healthy color and this went on for about 30 at least 30 minutes and at the end of 30 or 40 minutes I could see she was just profoundly relaxed her breath was even her color was even and she opened her eyes and she looked at me and she said do you want to know what happened and I said yes I would definitely be curious about that and um she said when um you you uh told me to to to see the the tiger and run from the tiger at that point I I was I felt like I was dying I felt like I wasn't going to survive and she said to me she said and then when you told me when you said and gave me the encouragement because I felt like I was dying and I was just saying in my mind doctor don't let me die help me help me don't let me die but her words were so muted that again I could barely hear the words but again after she started to experience this profound change in her bodily reaction um she offered the following she said when you told me to see the tiger I could do that when I started to run my legs were like lead it was like I was trying to run in in in mud but finally I could feel my legs gaining in strength and then when I came to the wall I could feel my hands reaching and pulling myself up Rock by Rock and when I got up and looked down I saw the tiger and then the image of the tiger changed to seeing myself when I was four years old and I was being held down by doctors and nurses while an ether mask was forced onto my face uh for a rout a routine tonsilectomy and she described what she was and I asked her well what are you noticing now and she said it feels like I'm being held in warm tingling waves and this was something that I was to discover in working over the decades with literally thousands and thousands of of people who were suffering from different kinds of trauma and um that um that once in transforming trauma one comes to a deeper positive sense of our own bodies in other words of embodiment so rather than trying to erase a trauma or change a person's thoughts about a trauma or um or just medicate with trauma by the way I'm not against medication um for short term some medication can be helpful but it was really coming home to the body and that was the I think the biggest Discovery although I didn't really have the words for it that time because I don't think even the term embodiment was even used I don't even remember when exactly it was you know started to become more more welln but anyhow the fact that she transformed this experience into what maybe one could even call a spiritual experience or even better an embodied spiritual experience really then channel the rest of my life in continuing to work with trauma and basically to develop an approach that I could teach to Stu to to students and who to therapists and that they could um use with their clients and so around that time I started to um give a uh a seminar for a group of Berkeley therapists I was living outside in my what I call my Treehouse my Wildcat can Treehouse and uh in working to I tried to explain to them what I was doing why I was doing it I would do that by demonstrating with them one at a time and then trying to get the right words the right metaphors to explain what was going on and um and that group of 12 I think it's 12 or 15 people that's still in my mind the way the the approach sematic experiencing is taught and when I was told that it that was now being taught to uh 40 or 50,000 people worldwide I just couldn't compress couldn't understand how is that how is that possible and again I think the reason that it was so Central to embodiment and I think that's what we are missing not just because of trauma but because of overs socialization and because of neglect and fear of having bodily experiences so um so that was the basic idea now there were two things that I also noticed with uh Nancy again her heart rate was very high when we started and as it came down and then it shot up that's the sympathetic nervous system It's the branch of the nervous system that's involved in fight or FL flight and when Nancy had held was held down by the nurses and doctors and put and The Mask forth on her face what she what she had experienced is that her body was frozen that it couldn't do anything to escape but her body wanted to escape it needed to escape and it needed to escape for 20 years until we had the session together when she was 24 years old so I started to discover how many different things happen to us where we're threatened where we're overwhelmed but they don't overh they don't unhappen and also when her heart rate went very down very very low and when she pleaded with me locked her eyes into my eyes doctor I'm dying I'm dying don't let me die help me help me that's what later Steven pores described as the uh shutdown system the dorso vagal shutdown system so there are three main systems that govern how we are in the world and how we experience ourselves in the world one is the sympathetic fight ORF flight response the other is the shutdown response which involves a hyperactivation of the gut of the viscera also involves a very profound slowing of the heartbeat and also to um to experience uh one's life was hanging in the balance and so she was able to move out of that shutdown State into a more sympathetic response and then bringing that down into equilibrium now when she came to equilibrium and when the thousands of people I've worked with come to to equilibrium another system comes online so we have the figh or flight we have the the dors of vagel shutdown system and then another system described in Steven PJ's po vagel Theory what he calls social engagement system and that's what at the end of the session when Nancy opened her eyes and looked at my eyes not grabbing but softly connecting with each other that was the social engagement system and again the social engagement system is about having our bodily on our bodies online of being present of being connected to ourselves and also to be connected with others one of the other things that I discovered in developing the work is that it's critical because trauma is about being overwhelmed so in a session you don't want to overwhelm the person and I realized if not by luck uh Nancy uh could have easily been been was that the person not be overwhelmed because trauma is about being overwhelmed and so to the brain to the nervous system being overwhelmed is not any different than the original trauma and so again it was made no sense to help people just relive their traumas if they were overwhelmed but just to do one small amount at a time um if it's okay I'd just like to show a short um a video would that be okay hello yes that would be absolutely no problem okay so it's gonna just take me a moment to do this yes I will give you sharing rights right I want to just open it first M uh here we go we go whoa where did this go ah oh here it is okay what you're going to see here is a chase that goes on at like 130 140 kilometers an hour that's about 16065 miles an hour and it's the chase of a Chase of a um Impala trying to escape from a cheetah and again just getting in mind that this Chase is going on at 65 miles an hour the cheetah is the fastest land mammal at at speeds of 65 miles an hour however they're only able the cheetah is only able to sustain that for about 20 seconds after that their energy is spent and the Impala would have escape and just to know that the um that the uh the Cubs of the cheetah if she's unable to make a kill in at least one in six times that they will starve and they will perish and also the mother will perish and the species will per perish so it's a really vitally it's not only life or death for the Impala it's life or death also for the cheetah but that's how things things are in nature so what I'm going to do now uh I am going to go to back here and whoops ah here we go ah okay so share screen here we go with audio here we go and share and when you're watching this become aware of your own Sensations your own feelings your own thoughts or images that might come up for you when you're watching this this short video she dashes forward that's of course the flight response fight or flight response all energy is mobilized for the life or death Escape this time Duma has killed a good-sized female Impala unfortunately in the plane one's own gratification often stimulates another's Envy duma's catch has been witnessed from start to finish the Spy is Mama kingu a spotted hyena she knows that dumer is completely exhausted by her final Sprint and yet things may not finish as we thought they would for sometimes the weak are capable of cunning it's a profound physiological state so let's summarize what's going on here hello are you seeing me oh there we go okay so let's just look at the energy level of the uh of the gazelle okay so the the gazel or the Impala so they're in an Uplands Meadow grazing on grass nurturing their young and if we just look at their energy levels they're a relaxed and alert both a relaxed and alert then they sense danger and so they activate to a little higher energy level and then the chase goes on and then all of the energy that they can muster in their bodies is mobilized in Escape then we saw at the moment of contact the cheetah Bringing Down the Impala so that all of this energy got locked in and you saw because the body was motionless that same energy though for escape it was still there but it was inhibited and then as the coast was perceived to be clear the gazelle released again that energy and off it bounded now so that's the normal response so the there was the first the flight response then the energy became locked down to use the term locked down in a different way and then the energy released in the Escape what happens with people unfortunately is that we become frightened or which leads very frequently to traumatization is we become frightened oh uh are you see are you seeing me full screen here hello yes Peter people see your full screen okay just checking so anyhow uh with with with people with human animals with people this that energy does get locked in but we fear that very energy because because the sensations in our bodies that would take us out of traumatization become uh fearful and so we inhibit so instead of releasing the energy because if we release that energy all at once that energy would be exploding but we would be overwhelmed so because people are afraid of these very Sensations again the very Sensations that take them out of immobility into a hyper uh hyper activated State and then would would then go to to equilibrium to rest um that they they become inhibited so all of this energy gets locked in there because the fear is if and if it were released all at once that energy would explode out and as I said before this can lead not only to um to this um this energy being uh access but of the person being overwhelmed by it and again being overwhelmed by the sensations in terms of what the nervous system perceives is no different or hardly different than being traumatized in the first place so the key in somatic experiencing and in enhancing embodiment is to release this energy one small amount at a time so again here's the energy that's coiled in here it's basically in suppressed if that suppression was released prematurely that'd be explosion of this energy into disorder and into um overwhelm so in somatic experience what I discovered is that releasing this energy one small amount at a time letting it come to equilibrium then releasing another small amount of energy and then releasing it to equilibrium and then to equilibrium so that the same amount of energy is released but one small amount at a time and when I was starting to teach this I again I was teaching a group of therapists and also I wrote waking the tiger healing trauma where again I also talk about these basic biological responses that have profound effects on our organisms so again the trick is to just to access to touch in to the trauma related Sensations whatever they are to just touch in to let them come to equilibrium before evoking another um another uh release of energy and each time releasing a little bit more energy until the full flow of energy is restored and which leads the uh the cheetah the uh Impala to relaxed alertness where they started so in other words it returns us to equilibrium as you saw with Nancy it not only returned to equilibrium but it gave her something even more which was this sense of being held in warm tingling waves one of the other things related actually to what happens in trauma is what I call pendulation which again is critical in in accessing and resolving traumatic reactions so this is a little toy it's called a hobman sphere you can get them on Amazon and what happens when people first uh become aware of their Body Sensations particularly people who have been traumatized it actually feels worse because we're cut off from our Sensations so we're not feeling them but when we do begin to feel them it feels like it's worse and so the trick then is to go to just touch into the experience enough so that the person can can feel can experience this contraction which then will lead to an um expansion which then will lead to another contraction and then to another expansion another contraction and another expansion and so forth so again the idea is just touching into the traumatic Sensations just enough and then to help guide the person the individual the client to experience through the contraction to an expansion do another contraction and another expansion and another contraction and another expansion let me also uh show you another demonstration whoop hello ah take me a moment to do this all right okay just going to take me a moment or two here I hope there we go okay share screen and share got it so again around the theme of embodiment uh let me maximize this yeah and it is a journey from trauma to Awakening and Flow and here's an image again from nature a lot of my material I draw literally from nature what flow looks like what it feels like again just feeling sensing in your [Music] body so prom is from moving from fixity to [Music] flow and in in ancient Japan there was a tradition called wabisabi it's not the stuff you put your dip your sushi in and the idea is that um that when a a a cup which is really a center of Japanese living is damaged is is cracked what they do is they fill the crack with gold and the idea is that when somebody has been injured and they're able to transform their injury then it is like gold it is something deeper and more beautiful than before the injury even happened and here's another um example that um helps people help me Teach uh the therapists who were studying with me how uh what to look for and how things work and so this I call the stream of Life uh ex or the stream of life um uh model it's it's like a metaphor it's partly a metaphor partly a model and so what you see here let me get um okay let me hello let's get my laser pointer here yeah so this is a stream and the stream flows within the banks represented by these black um perimeters and um here's a boat that is to say our bodily experience which flows along this stream and it has full range within the energy currents of the stream now during the our lifetime as children and as adults we meet different obstacles along with our in along our lives and I'm res representing this by these stones that are in the Stream now what can happen is yes there's a restriction when we meet these challenges but when we meet these challenges then we're able to go into the full flow of the stream again so here it is passing through there's a constriction but then an expansion into full embodied experience now trauma is something very different trauma is like a force that acts from outside and causes a rupture a breach in the in the uh the uh Bank of the stream in the barrier of the of the uh stream and uh it leads to feelings of overwhelming helplessness um Freud I think was around 1960 he really um uh made a very good definition of trauma he said trauma is a breach in the protect in the protective bar against stimulation leading to over to feelings of overwhelming helplessness I just changed that a little bit the trauma is a breach a rupture in the protect the barrier against over stimulation leading to feelings of overwhelming helplessness so what happens here is now when the person comes anywhere near those traumatic Sensations and images and flashbacks they're draw the there's a Vortex that forms outside of the stream what's what happens whenever you have a a a rupture of of a fluid um moving outwards it will form into a Vortex and so then as the as the person comes anywhere near the trauma which I call the trauma Vortex or the blackold of trauma they are sucked in to this Vortex and in and in and in so in other words they're and avoiding any of these Sensations so that they can pass through without being swallowed up by the trauma the problem of course is that the person's life stream now has been greatly minimized they've lost contact with the alive sensing knowing body so neither of these is an adequate solution then there is a third solution a third possibility which is the solution and that is whenever we have a Vortex going in One Direction there will almost always be a Vortex moving in the opposite direction and I call this the counter Vortex so now when the person moves towards these two vortices we help the individual the client move into this counter vortex and then around the periphery of that counter Vortex and then using the momentum to move then only to the outer onion layer of the trauma Vortex and you see on the boat there there's a small figure uh a blue and a red figure and with their hands like this and the key here is in not avoiding the Vortex but in being able to to take one element from the counter Vortex again these are usually positive resourceful experiences and then connect them hold them together with the trauma Vortex and then coming back into the mainstream as an integrative process and it's this holding together of opposites which is profoundly impactful in embodiment Peter it's Mar here um we've gone past the hour but that's okay we can go for another five minutes and there's some great questions here can I can I ask you a couple sure and I also was G let me just show this and then I was going to do an exercise with people oh so we have another another five minutes for even Q or an exercise y yep okay so let me just finish this so this time then the person is back fully embodied in the mainstream so um I'll take question but let's just do an exercise together first remember when I talked about Nancy how she went into the shutdown State when in the shutdown State our guts are all Disturbed and there's this Vagas nerve it's the largest nerve in the body that goes from the brain stem down throughout the whole body particularly the organs in the uh below the diaphragm the subdiaphragmatic organs and um and especially the gastrointestinal system so we see something that's upsetting we're walking outside and and we see somebody falling off a bicycle and laying on the ground and so uh our brain tells our guts to go g this nerve that goes from the brain to the body that many people don't realize and Darwin actually first realized it was that that nerve nerve is 80% afrine so in other words it's taking messages from the gut and sending it back up to the brain and so what happens is we see something like Yak then that yak signals goes up the Vagas nerve and then is Amplified in the brain in the brain system so we start with a h and then it becomes Amplified to H and then and we're stuck there we're stuck in that distressed sensation and we're robbed of our energy we can't focus we um we have no energy we're not able to be in the here and now so the one of the exercise here and it's a very simple exercise is to actually put a new signal from the guts back up to the brain stem to say all is clear all is okay and what I found the the best exercise for this is or an a really good exercise to help this is what I call the Vu exercise and again I'm just going to I'm going to demonstrate it and then if any of you wanted to do it yourselves be free and often it brings up Sensations but the sensations might sometimes be a little bit um disquieting maybe even a little bit frightening but again as we pendulate as we go into this Contracting State then we move into an expanding state so the exercise is to take an easy full breath and on the exhalation to make the sound V Vu coming from the belly feeling it as though it's coming from the belly well it is so you're then vibrating The receptors in the belly which is sending a signal back up to the brain that says all clear you don't have to be shut down anymore you can come back into life and embodied life so I'll demonstrate it I'll and then we can do it together if you want [Music] so then letting the breath and the and the sound all the way out and then letting a new breath come in feeling belly and chest and just rest and just notice Sensations feelings thoughts or images anything that comes into your stream of awareness but particularly Body Sensations so shall we do it together let's just do it twice and I don't want to stimulate too much um Activation so easy full breath and let the breath in the air go all the way [Music] out and letting the breath come in feeling belly and [Music] chest and rest and again just notice Sensations like is your fingers tingling do you feel any trembling or any warmth or any coolness or coldness anywhere your body anywhere in your body whatever comes up just noticing that without judgment any Sensations feelings images or thoughts okay Peter we are out of time but I want to ask at least one question so I'm going to be fair and ask the top voted one and that is do you have any tips or exercises to work on dissociation tonic immobility well this is one of them for sure and another one kind of adding to this is involving also the jaw and remember the guts have to do with the shutdown system the jaw with the active system so that's again if we can get to that phase then we will be experiencing a deeper sense of um if settl and embodiment so here's the exercise so starting with the [Music] Vu wowow and again just being aware of Sensations somebody wrote that their dog came in right then and another person said my dog did too yes animals recognize this very very very love in a very lovely way absolutely and then the cat came my another dog another cat came in exactly because you're resonating with them you're connecting with animal instincts when you do this and the Animals recognize that and now as number of you said uh it say like a diger doo indeed it is like a diger do in terms of the sound but you're also making the Vu directly from the belly but VI but digo is a very useful tool for people who have been in shutdown so absolutely okay gone to attack okay we do need to wrap up I know this is frustrating people there's so many good questions there and I I want to make sure my team get a chance to eat before the next shift starts fairly shortly so um P Peter thank you so much for your time uh we'll put your website in the chat there I recommend Peter's books if people want to learn more about this to check those out uh you're a legend in this field so we do appreciate your time today um as ever people if you want to buy the recordings the library includes Steven pores David belli Alanis moriset interviewing some of the big names in this field the Gabel mat interview of course so all that is in the library if people would like to take their time and be spacious with that we will no doubt be discussing uh this work in the Facebook group if people are there and if you're Keen to talk to each other more the coffee breaks you can click on top right the three little dots on the portal top right there's a big red coffee cup that will put you in a zoom room with other human beings where you can chat through this session we always go back to the speaker for the final word however Peter we're putting together a book of top embodiment tips do you have a one sentence tip for the book um well you know I mean really all of my books are embodiment going kind of in a sequence of adding more and more detail and more and more more different exercises you know that people can do so that's in waking the tiger it's also in a book CD I did for sounds true called um healing trauma a pioneering uh P pioneering resource for restoring Wellness or something like that um and you know there are lots of different exercises actually I'm working on a program right now with sounds Tru for people who have these physical conditions like I described they're sometimes called mus medically unexplained symptoms like fibromyalgia irritable bowel so forth to help them move through these states back into aliveness into embodiment and again you know this conference I it couldn't have a better title and more related to way I see trauma as a journey towards greater and greater embodiment Peter LaVine thank you very much for your time all the best M at the emment conference Okie do okay I just leave here now right yeah well we see you again Peter tomorrow where are you located where are you from I'm right now in London and uh usually living in the Netherlands and I had a very very lovely conversation with your assistant Melissa so so big big thank thank you to her she did an amazing job Okie do okay bye for now bye bye thank you so much have a lovely day [Music] bye

Channel: The Embodiment Channel

Views: 22,882

Keywords: Embodiment Unlimited, The Embodied Facilitator, Embodiment, Mark Walsh, Trauma informed training, Trauma prevention, Trauma informed yoga, Embodied spirituality, leadership, embodied leadership, nervous system regulation, somatics, nervous system health, ecosomatics, mindbody, bodymind, spiritual health, peacebuilding, embodied peacebuilding, The Embodiment Conference, peter levine, trauma

Id: 8824wrfzWEg

Length: 54min 45sec (3285 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024