Chapter IV

The Mechanism of Healing

We live in at least two spheres simultaneous, our internal being, that is, inside our skin, and the external environment, out side our skin. Many believe there is a third sphere, the realm of our soul, or the spiritual world. This plane is generally not in our discussion, although for those who believe in spirit of soul, their belief can be powerfully harnessed in the task of healing.

From the external environment our remarkable senses, sight, hearing, scent, touch, taste and movement (kinetic), transmit to our neural pathways all the information contained in the situation and circumstance occurring moment to moment. This information is transmitted in individual bits of stimuli to our brain.

Internally, each nerve fires a tiny electrical charge to move the bits from one to the next and finally into our brain system .for processing and action. This process happens in milliseconds.

Everything that occurs in the external environment is experiential to us. Everything that happens inside our system in response to the experience is physiological: chemical, hormonal and electrical.

What we sense as "emotions," or our "feelings," are organic signals reflecting what is physiologically happening internally in response to the experience. The way we perceive and interpret the current experience is based on the experiences we have already encountered and the information from those experiences we have processed and stored in our memory banks.

Summary of our response processes

In the preceding chapter, "The Mechanism of Hurt and Oppression," we discussed how we process both good and hurt experiences. We process good, that is benign, experiences in a balanced, evaluative way and store the experience in our memory which is available to our recall as a whole pattern or in any of its individual bits that are useful and appropriate at the time.

In the case of good experiences, our signals of emotion and feelings, triggered by the internal processes, are registered as pleasant and become attached to the entire pattern as well as to all of its bits. Our perception and interpretation of the experience also become associated with the whole or any part of the pattern. We build our developing knowledge, skill and complexities of perception and creativity on such good processing as we live and learn day to day.

Processing bad or hurtful experiences is much different. When we experience something bad or threatening our "fight or flight" defense system is triggered off. Internally this produces the kind of chemistry and hormones that prepare our muscles for emergency use. This chemistry consists of adrenalin, cortisol, steroids, norepinephrine and the like. Organically there is no luxury of time to evaluate and think about the dangerous event that confronts us. The emergency chemistry blocks out such processing, our response system is concerned only with surviving the danger.

The bad experience is then formed into a pattern that is perceived as threat and temporarily registered in our memory banks. Once the danger subsides we are organically impelled to "heal," that is, to detoxify the emergency chemistry,

We see this at work when, for example, we see the person emerging from the fire seeking out the attention, and perhaps the arms, of someone standing by. We see the hero start to talk or sweat, shake, even to cry under the power of that attention. The person is organically expunging the no longer needed emergency chemistry. The more she or he discharges and detoxifies the chemistry, the more her or his evaluative brain starts to make sense out of the experience, and the more she or he is able to store the experience in a flexible and useful way.

We need to do this in order to regain balance and the evaluative power of rational thinking in our brain. When we are enabled to do such healing, then we can store the experience as a flexible pattern, able to recall it as a whole or any of its bits in our memory banks. For instance when we are telling the story later we can recall the whole memory. When we are lighting a fire at a later time, we can remember the precaution we need to take.

In the conditioned society (review chapter III), there is not much real attention and listening available. Even in the best scenario the listener will pay attention for a while, and then interfere with the detoxification (healing) process with "there, there, (pat, pat) it will be all right" or "now, now stop crying, you're safe," or some other method of interruption. Too often our state is ignored or interrupted harshly, which adds greater trauma to the hurt.

We are taught (conditioned) to believe that the discharge (e.g., tears) is part of the hurt. It is not. The discharge is the inherent and organic mechanism, we see on the surface that detoxifies and transports the excess emergency chemistry out of our system.

The detoxifying mechanisms include talking (we often use the term "talking therapy" in counseling jargon), laughter (the light part of the process) hot sweat (discharge of frustration and anger), tantrums (angry sounds and gestures, discharge of anger), cold skin and/or trembling/shaking (discharge of fear), crying dry or wet tears (discharge of loss and grief). As for detoxifying the hurt of humiliation or invalidation any or all of these forms may occur. Many times, if the process is not interrupted, one form of discharge will follow on the heels of another. Sometimes they proceed back and forth. We often see, for example, heavy laughing turn into tears. In chapter III we described the long term damaging effects of not detoxifying the "fight or flight" chemistry. The hurt or bad experience is stored as a distress pattern. Unattended to over time, the distress pattern converts into a numbing chronic distress pattern that pumps the emergency chemistry perpetually, eroding our tissue and organs, lowering our immune system and making us increasing vulnerable to viruses and bacteria, diseases and disorders of all kinds, shutting down our brain power (killing cells), ageing us prematurely and deleteriously, and killing us far earlier than the potential for long, vigorous and healthy life would deem..

The healing process, listening and paying attention

In chapter I many kinds of hurts, but certainly not all, are described. When we are confronted with a hurtful event or stimulus, our "fight or flight" system is triggered. Our internal process pumps out the emergency chemistry that prepares us for defense.

In the case of the very young the detoxifying, discharge process starts almost immediately. That is, the young one starts to cry or scream or expresses a tantrum (anger), sweat or tremble (fear) and so on.

This in an inherent process for the purpose of healing as well as for drawing proper attention. Proper attention is needed to bring safety to the situation. Safety allows the hurt one to intuitively transfer his or her own attention from the danger to the healing process. Without the protection that safety offers it is harder for the healing process to occur fully.

This inherent need for support is part of nature's "glue" that binds us together for the purpose of survival and social success.

Let's use our hero in the fire event cited above. She (or he) emerges from the fire, wired, frightened perhaps exhausted. A symbol of strength and safety, a fireman, stands near by. Our hero heads straight for him, arms reaching out. Intuitive, the fireman extends his arms; she grabs him and hangs on. She has his attention, he provides the safety and protection, and she begins, naturally, to discharge. At first utterances storm out, "oh...oh"oh God, oh God," maybe some expletives as well. Then she (or he) begins to sweat (cold) and tremble. If there was loss of life or if the lost property was personal, there might flow tears and sobs.

Now, this is a smart and fairly unconditioned fireman, he just holds our hero easily and pays real attention. Our hero continues to discharge. Soon, coherent words and phrases start to emerge. This is an indication that our hero"s evaluative thinking is returning. Our hero describes what she saw and felt; suddenly she expresses new thinking about the cause of the fire and what should have been done to prevent the danger. From time to time, our hero's expression may go back to another bursts of expletives or other utterances, another good shake or round of laughter, maybe some more tears.

It will be as if blue sky emerged from the dark clouds. Our hero now has returned to a lighter and confident mode (and mood). She says to our other hero, the fireman, "thanks, I really needed that, really thanks, you're a great guy. I got to get back to what I have to do, now."

The trauma is spent, the hurt and its bad chemistry has been detoxified. Our hero's function is back to balance, back to flexible thinking, back to power.

In reality, our hero did not come out of a vacuum. She (or he) has also grown up in the conditioned, oppressive society. The present hurtful event probably has restimulated a history of hurts that has been mis-stored in our hero's system.

After the present event and after such successful discharge, our hero becomes mindful of some of the older hurts that the present one restimulated (reminded her of). She remembers the "heat" (that the present fire restimulated) of that summer when she was locked and forgotten in the car for a couple of hours. Old anger at the adult, maybe mom or dad, who did that. Maybe old feelings of grief or fear at the threat of possible death.

Maybe many other hurtful memories that were not healed came up. Our hero realizes that she (or he) has work to do to clear up the old hurts. She (or he) decides to get counseling, or better yet, remembering how the fireman listened, decides to learn how to train a partner to listen. Still better, she (or he) decides to not only train a partner to listen, but to learn how to also listen. In this way she and her partner can remain equal as peers, rather than engage in the "one up and one down" system (a familiar arrangement in the oppressive society, e.g., the smart professional and the dumb patient). She decides to learn how to exchange listening and discharging in a fair and rational way.

Our hero tells her (or his) best friend, with whom she has shared lots of little moments of listening to her idea. "Friend" agrees to try it.

Hero remembers the fireman listened for about twenty minutes or so. She and Friend decide to trade listening for twenty minutes each. She goes first with Friend listening, and then it will be hero's turn to listen.

How to start" They decided to just start talking about their lives, maybe with the latest incident, maybe about the memories it brought up. Maybe just talk about memories at random or from the first memory available, all sorts of things, the happy memories as well as the hurtful stuff.

They start. First Friend listens to Hero. But after two minutes Friend is reminded of something similar in own life, and interrupts Hero.

Hero says, "No, Fireman never interrupted; let's try to decide not to interrupt and to pay real close attention." "OK." Friend says, and they start again. This time Hero talked about every thing that came up during her twenty minutes. She laughed, cried, trembled, got mad and let out her anger. She ran into some humiliation that felt to hard to talk about. Friend understood. They decided once they got used to the process and gained more trust in one another, Hero can bring it up again. They agreed.

The Friend took her twenty minutes to discharge. Hero listened with good attention. She mentally made note to just listen when something Friend said that triggered off a memory in her. She resisted the temptation to interrupt, and decided to save the restimulated memory for another turn as discharger.

After the forty minutes of exchanging listening and discharging, both Hero and Friend felt lighter, more confident. They decided to meet once or twice a week to do a "session." They decided to take more time, maybe forty minutes each or an hour each, since the experience was so gratifying.

Challenging the chronic pattern

The deepest injury of any significant hurt is the invalidation of one's very being, self identity and worth. Every hurt is an invalidation of self worth. The internalized "message" of invalidation is the severest part of an attack against one's worth and confidence. In some way it reads "I am not smart enough, good enough, not lovable, not beautiful or desirable enough, not talented or creative enough, not useful, a burden, not worthy even of life."

Unless we are supported to heal the hurts in a timely way, they numb our awareness of their impact on our lives as they transform into chronic distress patterns. Numbness is part of the pattern.

Let's return to our fire Hero and her (his) Friend. In our allegory, they talked about the experience. They each noted as they listened, that the words and other forms of discharge, were pointing at something deeper than just their obvious surface values. When Hero was discharging on the time she was locked and forgotten in the car, Friend intuitively evaluated that hurtful experience was somehow symbolic in Hero's difficulty in trusting people, especially "authorities."

Friend discussed this with Hero. "I noticed" Friend said, "that every once in a while, when we just talked before, you complained about trusting anyone, especially, you know, people "in charge." You think maybe this has something to do with that""

"Maybe," Hero responded. They talked more and they discovered that they intuitively put things like that together for each other. They had more sessions, longer sessions. They realized that what was happening is that they could perceive something under the words their partner was expressing.

This something was the chronic pattern that formed under the hurts, that numbed the person's awareness, but persisted in sabotaging their lives and any kind of positive relationship with other people (who symbolized the person implicated in the original hurts). This is a chronic pattern that pumps painful feelings, anxiety and undesirable reactive behaviors that surfaces when restimulated.

Hero and Friend decided to innovate a strategy against any chronic pattern that showed its tracks. They found that when they contradicted the direction in which the chronic pattern pulled, in this case "not trusting authority figures," it seemed to produce deeper discharge (healing).

In Hero's case, to contradict the distrust pattern, they used a phrase, which they called a "counter direction" or "direction" for short. The direction that they forged to contradict the chronic distrust, starting when Hero's parent (let's say dad) left her locked in the car (and remember, she never had the support to heal this hurt), was "Not all bosses are schmucks like dad!" When Hero said this, with power and commitment, she rolled off tons of laughter that transformed into heavy crying. Over many sessions, working on this, she noticed tremendous change. For one thing she experienced a new relaxation around "superiors." She noticed that she could see in them their fine qualities as well as any undesirable ones; she noticed how she could field their "output" with greater ease and grace, and without caving in as a "victim," as she once did.

After a few more session, Hero and Friend discovered that there were many ways to contradict the chronic pattern. Changing the expression on one"s face, from the despair to a look of contentedness, the tone of voice from negative to a powerful one, the slumping posture to a proud, upright one, from "rehearsing" phrases of distress to using powerful phrases. Sometimes a session would be an action session, for instance, if Friend or Hero really didn"t like crowds, to take a walk in the busy mall or other well populated venue, of course, with one"s co-listener partner for support and safety and perhaps to find a safe place to have a session if the restimulation became heavy enough.

Our partners then trained other people in the process. The power, joy, healing and powerful changes not only influenced their lives but also everyone they touched. Even the validating tone in their voices when just saying "hello" to a stranger made a difference in everyone. The stranger went home that day feeling happier and treating her or his family better.

Summary: Strategies for healing and Empowerment

Emotions/feelings:

Direction: "If I didn"t have to feel feelings and release them, nature would not have given them to me. It is the oppressive conditioning in society that manipulates me to hold in or shut down my feelings. By shutting down my feelings I give away my power to those who are in the top dog position within the status quo. I promise myself to restore my right to feel and express my feelings and thoughts, to heal, to speak up and reassert my place as an equal. I will not "dump" my feelings on anyone but will use my words to say what is good and to say what is wrong, and to demand correction of the wrong, even if it "feels" scary to do so. If I fail to do this, I will counsel and validate myself and return to do it."

The short version: "I have the right to feel and release my feelings and thoughts. I will not shut myself down, or hold in my power. I will not hurt anyone with my expressions, I will acknowledge what is good and demand correction of what is wrong. I promise. If at first it is too scary to do this, I will reassert my right and validate my equality, and return to claim my power."

The Healing Process:

a) Set up a listening partnership with someone who seems to be interested in trading listening.

b) Meet with your partner. Decide who discharges and who listens first. Decide on how much time each one takes; make sure it is an equal amount for each partner.

c) Help your partner get started by some light attention devise, like "hi, you look great today... I like your shirt...tell me some good things that happened..." and the like.

d) Listener, decide to not interrupt, interfere, judge, argue, interpret, not to look or act judgmentally nor give advice, as you listen to your partner. Listener, decide to pay attention to your partner with focus, interest and a supportive attitude.

e) Listener, decide to think about what deeper implications, i.e., a deeper, general hurt (chronic distress) your partner's words and non-verbal behaviors seem to be pointing to. For instance, distrust, fear of, or anger at, something or some kind of person, hopelessness, bitterness, addictive behavior, (all addictions are driven by chronic distress patterns, because they are compulsive - addictive behavior develops in order to "escape" the pain - which never works in the long run) etc. In other words, some distress that seems to characterize your partner"s general mood, view point, rigid behavior or perception. Point this out to your partner (after his or her turn) and try to construct a direction (counter direction) to contradict the chronic distress.

Example direction, let's say against an addiction: "I do this to push down the pain. The pain was caused by some hurt. I will no longer run away from the pain, I will discharge the pain and heal the hurt to regain control of my life. I promise to hold this direction over and over until I am in control."

f) Discharger, start out by talking about some good things or good memories. This is to pull your attention out of the shut down mode of the distress so that you can talk, (discharge) about it more easily. If some other form of discharge (laughter, tears, anger, fears, yawns - yawns are natural wonders to relieve physical tension) occurs, let it run fully. Move onto the lighter hurts.

g) Discharger, when you are ready to tackle the hurts, talk about what happened - let other forms of discharge flow if they are available. Don"t rush the story. Repeat it again and again if you feel the urge to. Every time you tell the story a new piece of the tale will come back to your memory and it will get discharged (detoxified) as well. This will lessen the grip of the hurt more and more.

Your intuition may tell you that you have worked on a particular piece of hurt (material) enough for the present session. This the brain"s way of avoiding "overloading" and giving itself time and space to "cook" on it. Pick up the material in the next session.

Track similar events of hurt, either from the earliest part of your life to the present, or randomly as they pop up for recall.

Go to any other hurtful events even if they seem unrelated, and discharge on those. In reality every part of our brain is connected by the billions of cells that make up the brain. When we work on one thing it will also effect healing on some other material without you being aware of it. Sooner or later you will become aware of unexpected positive changes in your mood, view point and/or behavior.

Healing the chronic distress pattern

h) Discharger, provide a significant amount of your time to hold your directions, to contradict the chronic distress patterns and weaken their grip on your life. Take note of the feelings and thoughts that come up when you use your direction. Follow them, work on them. Go back to the direction.

Fundamentally, there is but one original chronic distress pattern that sprung from the earliest significant hurt you encountered in your life. This original pattern acted like a magnet to all the subsequent restimulations and formation of distress patterns. Let us say the original distress was the fear of disapproval or of abandonment, of being killed (feeling unwanted. to a very young child is tantamount to being killed), or perhaps the original hurt was the feeling of never being good enough.

I wish I could be with you right now and listen to you for a while. I would likely be able to identify the damaging chronic distress pattern foisted upon you. (Please use the forum to post questions or comments which I will be happy to address) Since I am not with you here's a general direction that when you use it sufficiently, you will shorten it and tailor it down to fit your circumstance. Make using your directions part of your life style, not just for your sessions. The chronic pattern is operating, numbly, all the time. The more you contradict it the better and faster will be your healing, getting your power back and taking charge of your life.

More than likely when you use the kind of direction that contradicts the invalidations to your worth, you will find it hard to believe it. This is because through no fault of your own, and lacking the support to heal the hurt, the invalidations were internalized and formed the foundation of the distress pattern. You were conditioned to "believe" the invalidations. I put quote marks around "believe" because down deep, in the well of our human intuition, we have always known that these invalidations were lies.

We had to buy into them, because we tried to avoid further pain. If we got punished because we were courageous or smart, or whatever, and stood up for ourselves, we soon learned, under the circumstance, to bury our sense of worth Over time we became numb to the truth, and believed we had actually to collude with the oppression in order to survive.

The more you use the direction the easier it will be to do so. You will delight in the results of a persistent commitment.

The General Direction:

"I am me! I am a human being, completely worthy in every way. I am smart, lovable, desirable, beautiful, creative, courageous, expressive with a remarkable, inherently strong, healthy system, and a healing system."

"I am unique, and therefore important. The contribution of my uniqueness to the unfolding story of human kind makes me important. No one will ever take that away from me again."

"I was not born to be used, abused or to be lived through by anyone, even my most beloved ones. I was born to be a unique delight to the world, to be supported for my worth, and to support others for theirs."

(Visualize those who hurt you, even the loved ones). To these say, "how dare you not heal your own hurts. How dare you dump them on me" How dare you install in my mind your pain, your distortions, your prejudices, biases, hates and misinformation" How dare you!"

"To hell with your approval: to hell with your favors if the price is my self respect and sense of worth."

"I am not here to please you. I am here to fulfill my uniqueness and make my contribution in whatever way I decide is best for me."

"I love you because you too are unique; you too have the potential to make an important contribution."