This linked hour-long interview with Dr. Stephen Porges explains what I've come to accept about his work as key to my focus. This is the clearest version I've found so far and one of the most recent.
The interview was conducted by Dr. David Perceli who sponsors an exercise technique system for bodies under stress. He seems to have a clear head and not be too New Agey. I am NOT a fan of exercise in an old house with cold floors. (Fourteen below Zero forecasted this weekend.)
Porges mentioned his own essay: "Ancient Rituals, Contemplative Practices and Vagal Pathways" in Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science so I downloaded it from the Internet and am working my way through it. Since I've been thinking along this line in the context of searching for the Sacred, I was startled that in this instance one context is the touchy issue of Compassion, which I often find a little, um, icky and an excuse for some to be patronizing. Like, nurses, for instance, who address us with terms of affection as though we were children. "I'm so loving that you must do what I say."
Beyond that, TRE appears to be a technique, actual physical exercises, meant to address trauma. I have not thought of myself in terms of trauma. I think of myself the way my mother (the farm girl raised to be as good as a boy) thought of herself: tough, capable, resourceful, compensating for others who weren't much help . . . but then I began to think about the times she hit her limits. And the times that I did, too. I thought about all the times I did dangerous, life-threatening, difficult, semi-heroic things without ever admitting they were traumatic or getting any help recovering. Suck it up, get it done, it's your job. Why are you being such a co-dependent anyway?
Long before the Iron Maiden Manhattan CEO's in movies, there was the farm wife. Kari Lynn Dell, who writes cowboy romances as well as a weekly column about being a ranch wife in a rodeo family. She lives not far from here. I forwarded one of her weekly columns about coping with major machinery breakdowns, extraordinarily severe weather, and big wayward animals to a friend in Calgary. My Canadian friend had had her experiences with rural life, but she exclaimed, "I have NEVER been faced challenges as major as hers!" Yet Dell would probably not consider herself a victim of PTSD. Around here we associate that with combat. It's sort of a proof of the essential deep vulnerability of men, little boys who must be protected by loving women.
So I had to google to find out about TRE. https://traumaprevention.com/what-is-tre/ "Tension & Trauma Release Exercises (or TRE®) is a simple yet innovative series of exercises that assist the body in releasing deep muscular patterns of stress, tension and trauma. Created by Dr. David Berceli, PhD, TRE safely activates a natural reflex mechanism of shaking or vibrating that releases muscular tension, calming down the nervous system. When this muscular shaking/vibrating mechanism is activated in a safe and controlled environment, the body is encouraged to return back to a state of balance." Indeed, the young man doing the demonstration exercise was shaking.
The idea is more about prevention and maintenance than about "healing," which has become a bit of a racket. This is where Dr. Porges' theory comes in. His explanation has a kind of dignity to it. In a tough environment where roles are hard, being vulnerable is dangerous. I see in this small town that certain people will bully anyone who lets down their guard or is having hard times. Poverty is permission to punish.
I was pleased to hear Dr. Porges say that "helping" is often an excuse for aggression and forced compliance to some norm. A woman from the city moved here and volunteered to be a court helper for delinquent kids, many of them tribal. She had no understanding of rez norms, so tried to force them to stop smoking, fighting, sleeping around, drinking, driving broken cars, etc. The kids begged the court to let them escape her bullying.
The word that was thrown around a bit in this interview vid was "spirituality," which Dr. Porges admitted was not a satisfactory word. The subjects that are thrown into religion have not been thought about this way before. We didn't even know that body parts were involved, much less which they were. The central idea that TRE welcomed was how we can use our organic selves to find relief from danger, to feel safe in the face of threats, to re-write our narrative of the world and to extend our justified and supported belonging to it.
This fits with my idea of the shift away from Christianity's use of the human family as the system guide for the nature of the universe, proposing the big Papa in the sky, either protective or disciplining; the loving mother; and the hero son. Today's science gives us a continuous, interconnected, all-inclusive web of existence -- both living and not -- that extends in every aspect beyond human perception but never excludes us. We are always part of time and place, even in death. We haven't really learned to feel this except in some Eastern religions. "Star Wars" is still more about families than about interrelationship.
We are reinventing the narrative of our lives. For the most part, participation is relief from danger in the sense that others will help. But I see some problems. Porthes said in the interview that the SEALS -- Special Forces -- at some point actually drown the newcomer and then revive him, to show him deeply that he can risk danger because the others will save him. This example worries me, particularly given Gallagher, the SEAL recently pardoned by President Trump after murdering innocents, evidently interpreted this to mean NOT that he was included in a special group, but that anyone outside that group was valueless, could be eliminated.
In that example, the team tried to prevent murder and formally accused the killer. He was convicted. In a way they WERE saving him. From his worst self. No one is preventing from their worst selves the political hard right so full of hatred and resentment. They are killers. Having found a group that will accept and defend them, they set up a boundary that justifies murder. Trump agrees with this.
It makes me tremble, but not because I feel safe.
It makes me tremble, but not because I feel safe.
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