If you bring forth that which is within you,
Then that which is within you
Will be your salvation.
If you do not bring forth that which is within you,
Then that which is within you
Will destroy you.
—The Gnostic Gospels
In a lifetime of working with traumatized individuals, I have been struck by the intrinsic and wedded relationship between trauma and spirituality. From my earliest experiences with clients suffering from a daunting array of crippling symptoms, I have been privileged to witness profound and authentic transformations. Seemingly out of nowhere, as with Nancy from Chapter 2, who was “held in warm tingling waves,” such unexpected “side effects” appeared as these individuals mastered the monstrous trauma symptoms that had haunted them—emotionally, physically and psychologically. These surprises included ecstatic joy, exquisite clarity, effortless focus and an all-embracing sense of oneness. In addition, many of my clients described deep and abiding experiences of compassion, peace and wholeness. In fact, it was not unusual after that profound internal shift of feeling the “goodness of self,” perhaps for the first time, to refer to their therapeutic work as “a holy experience.” While these individuals realized the classic goals of enduring personality and behavioral changes, these transcendent side effects were simply too potent and robust to overlook. I have been compelled to follow these exciting and elusive enigmas with wonder and curiosity for many decades.
Because the formal diagnosis of trauma, as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders III, was still over a decade away when my newfound odyssey was in its infancy, I didn’t have a formulated set of pathological criteria to unduly distract me. I was freer to observe in the tradition of the ethologists. From this vantage point, and without a premeditated list of symptoms, I was able to monitor my clients’ bodily reactions and self-reports as I participated in their transformative process of healing. The highly charged physiological reactions described in the earlier chapters, including shaking and trembling (when experienced as a safe discharge) together with dramatic spontaneous changes in temperature, heart rate and respiration, helped to restore their equilibrium. These reactions also promoted a relaxed readiness, an aptitude similar to that cultivated in Zen and in the martial arts such as aikido.
In sorting through these types of involuntary, energetic and deeply moving experiences, I realized that my clients’ reactions manifested what was right and normal—rather than what was wrong and pathological. In other words, they exhibited innate self-regulating and self-healing processes. And as the animals went on about their daily business after such discharge reactions, so too did my clients reengage into life with renewed passion, appreciation and acceptance.
At the same time, they frequently touched into a variety of experiences that I learned to appreciate as spiritual encounters such as Nancy’s feelings of aliveness, warmth, joy and wholeness. In moving toward an understanding of this intrinsic relationship between trauma (“raw, latent survival energy”) and spirituality, I was excited to come across a formative article by Roland Fischer published in the prestigious journal Science. A surprising and unexpected tenet emerged: that spiritual experience is welded with our most primitive animal instincts.
Roland Fischer’s article, titled “A Cartography of the Ecstatic and Meditative States,”166 described a schema for showing the association of various parasympathetic and sympathetic (autonomic-instinctual) activities with mystical and meditative experiences. While the details of his work are well beyond the scope of this short chapter, suffice it to say, I suspected that his view of the psychophysiological underpinning of various mystical states paralleled the range of “transpersonal” experiences that my clients were encountering as they unwound and released their traumas.
Trauma represents a profound compression of “survival” energy, energy that has not been able to complete its meaningful course of action. When in the therapeutic session, this energy is gradually released or titrated (Step 4 in Chapter 5) and then redirected from its symptomatic detour onto its natural course, one observes (in a softer and less frightening form) the kinds of reactions I observed with Nancy. At the same time, the numinous qualities of these experiences gracefully, automatically and consistently became integrated into the personality structure. The ability to access the rhythmic release of this bound energy makes all the difference as to whether it will destroy or vitalize us.
Primitive survival responses engage extraordinary feats of focused attention and effective action. The mother who lifts the car off of her trapped child mobilizes vast (almost superhuman) survival energy. These same energies, when experienced through titrated body sensing, can also open to feelings of heightened focus, ecstasy and bliss. The ownership of these primordial “oceanic” energy sensations promotes embodied transformation and (as suggested in Fischer’s cartography) the experience of “timelessness” and “presence” known in meditation as “the eternal now.” In addition, it appears that the very brain structures that are central to the resolution of trauma are also pivotal in various “mystical” and “spiritual” states.167
In the East, the awakening of Kundalini at the first (or survival) chakra center has long been known to be a vehicle for initiating ecstatic transformation. In trauma, a similar activation is provoked, but with such intensity and rapidity that it overwhelms the organism. If we can gradually access and reintegrate this energy into our nervous system and psychic structures, then the survival response embedded within trauma can also catalyze authentic spiritual transformation.
As I began to explore the relationship between trauma transformation and the Kundalini experience, I searched for confirmation of this connection. Around that time (the mid-1970s) I met a physician named Lee Sannella in Berkeley, California. He shared with me a large compilation of notes he had taken about individuals who were experiencing spontaneous Kundalini awakenings. I was intrigued by how similar many of these reactions were to those of my early clients. Sannella’s notes formed the basis for his valuable book, The Kundalini Experience, Psychosis or Transcendence?168 This phenomenon has been described by great contemporary adepts such as Gopi Krishna.169 In addition, C. G. Jung’s book The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga170 (based on a 1932 seminar) gives an erudite exposition but concludes, ironically, that Kundalini is unlikely to ever be experienced in the West. However, Jung goes on to say, “The life of feeling is that primordial region of the psyche that is most sensitive to the religious encounter. Belief or reason alone does nothing to move the soul: without feeling, religious meaning becomes a vacant intellectual exercise. This is why the most exuberant spiritual moments are emotively laden.” The essence of religious experience is an act of feeling the animating force—the spiritus within the lived encounter. When my clients experienced this élan vital surging forth from within them, it was not surprising that they also encountered aspects of religious awe.
Over the years I had the opportunity to show some videos of my clients’ sessions to Kundalini teachers from India. These were wonderful exchanges. The yoga masters, with genuine and disarming humility, seemed as interested in my observations as I was in their vast knowledge and intrinsic knowing.
“Symptoms” frequently described in Kundalini awakenings may involve any of the following: involuntary and spasmodic body movements, pain, tickling, itching, vibrations, trembling, alternations of hot and cold, changed breathing patterns, temporary paralysis, crushing pressure, insomnia, hypersensitivity to light and sound, synesthesia, unusual or extremes of emotions, intensified sex drive, sensations of physical expansion, dissociation and out-of-body experiences, as well as hearing “inner sounds,” such as roaring, whistling and chirping. These sensations associated with Kundalini awakenings are often more forceful and explosive than those I observed with my clients. As I developed my methodology, I learned to help clients gradually touch into their bodily-energy sensations so that they were rarely overwhelmed. In general, focusing inward and becoming curious about one’s inner sensations allows people to experience a subtle inner shift, a slight contraction, vibration, tingling, relaxation and sense of openness. I have named this shift from the feelings of dread, rage or whatever one likes to avoid toward “befriending” one’s internal sensations pendulation, the intrinsic rhythm pulsing between the experienced polarities of contraction and expansion/openness (Step 3 in Chapter 5). Once people learn to access this rhythmic flow within, “infinite” emotional pain begins to feel manageable and finite. This allows their attitude to shift from dread and helplessness to curiosity and exploration.
The mystical text Hermetic Kybalion says, “Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates.” The application of this perennial philosophy to trauma is the very principle that allows sensations and feelings that had previously been overwhelming to be processed and transformed in present time. In this way, trauma, when transformed, parallels Kabalistic philosophy.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil.
—Psalm 23
It would be an error to equate trauma with suffering and suffering, in turn, with transformation. At the same time, however, in virtually every spiritual tradition suffering is understood as a doorway to awakening. In the West, this connection can be seen in the biblical story of Job and, powerfully, in Psalm 23. It is found as the dark night of the soul in medieval mysticism—and, of course, in the passion of Christ. In Buddhism an important distinction is made between suffering and unnecessary suffering. According to the Buddha, “When touched with a feeling of pain, the ordinary person laments … becomes distraught … contracts … so he feels two pains … just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another … so that he would feel the pains of two arrows …” Trauma sufferers are so frightened of their bodily sensations that they recoil from feeling them. It is as though they believe that by feeling them they will be destroyed or, at the very least, make things worse. Hence they remain stuck. In this way, they shoot themselves with the second arrow—FDR’s “fear of fear itself.” With support and guidance, however, they are able to gradually learn to befriend and transform their trauma-based sensations.
In both the Buddhist and Taoist traditions, four pathways are said to lead to spiritual awakening.171 The first is death. A second route to freedom from unnecessary human suffering can come from many years of austere meditative contemplation. The third gateway to liberation is through special forms of (tantric) sexual ecstasy. And the fourth portal is said, by these traditions, to be trauma. Death, meditation, sex and trauma, in serving as great portals, share a common element. They are all potential catalysts for profound surrender.
The ability to feel the physical sensations of paralysis (without becoming overwhelmed) and surrender to them is the key in transforming trauma. When we are able to touch into that deathlike void even briefly, rather than recoil from it, the immobilization releases. In this way the second arrow of unnecessary suffering is eliminated. The “standing back” from fear allows the individual to emerge from the strangulation of trauma. As people “experience into” the time-limited paralysis sensations (in the absence of fear), they contact the “mini-deaths” that lie at the eye of the hurricane, at the very heart of trauma. This visitation is an opportunity to enter the rich portal of death. It is well known that many people who have had near death experiences (NDEs) undergo positive personality transformations. At the right time, traumatized individuals are encouraged and supported to feel and surrender into the immobility/NDE states, liberating these primordial archetypal energies while integrating them into consciousness.
In addition, the “awe-full” states of horror and terror appear to be connected to the transformative states such as awe, presence, timelessness and ecstasy. They share essential psychophysiological and phenomenological roots. For example, stimulation of the amygdala (the brain’s smoke detector for danger and rage) can also evoke the experience of ecstasy and bliss.172 This seems to support an approach that guides individuals through their awe-full feelings of fear and horror toward those of joy, goodness and awe.
Andrew Newberg and his colleagues have, in their seminal book Why God Won’t Go Away,173 brought together a vast amount of research on the brain substrates underlying a variety of different spiritual experiences. The application of this type of brain research to trauma transformation is a rich area worthy of further research and exploration.
As below, so above.
—Kybalion
In review: The autonomic nervous system (ANS) gets its name from being a relatively autonomous branch of the nervous system. Its basic, yet highly integrated function has to do with the regulation of energy states and the maintenance of homeostasis. The ANS is composed of two distinctly different branches.* Its sympathetic branch supports overall energy mobilization. If you are physically cold, perceive threat, or are sexually aroused, the sympathetic nervous system increases the metabolic rate and prepares you for action. The parasympathetic branch, on the other hand, promotes rest, relaxation, gestation, nurturance and restitution of tissue and cellular function.
When the level of activation of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is very low, we are apt to be feeling somewhat lethargic. At moderate levels of sympathetic activity, we are generally doing or preparing to do something active.174 This level of arousal is usually experienced as being alert, as well as pleasurably excited. In this realm there is typically a smooth back-and-forth shifting between moderate levels of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity serving a balanced physiological state called homeostasis. I call this flexible, seesawing, shifting range of arousal dynamic equilibrium and relaxed alertness along with energy, passion and focus.
In mammals, this capacity for self-regulation is essential. It endows the animal with the capability to make fluid shifts in internal bodily states to meet changes in the external environment. Animals with developed orbitofrontal systems have evolved the capacity to switch between different emotional states. This ability (known as affect regulation) allows animals to vary their emotions to appropriately match environmental demands. In humans, this highly evolved adaptive function, according to Schore and others, is the basis for the core sense of self.175 These same circuits in the orbitofrontal cortex receive inputs from the muscles, joints and viscera. The sensations that form the inner landscape of the body are mapped in the orbitofrontal portions of the brain.176 Hence, as we are able to change our body sensations, we change the highest function of our brains. Emotional regulation, our rudder through life, comes about through embodiment.
For in my flesh I shall see God.
—Book of Job
Curse the mind that mounts the clouds in search of
mythical kings and only mystical things, mystical things cry for the soul
that will not face the body as an equal place and I never learned to touch for real
down, down, down where the iguanas feel.
—Dory Previn song
Traumatized people are fragmented and disembodied. The constriction of feeling obliterates shade and texture, turning everything into good or bad, black or white, for us or against us. It is the unspoken hell of traumatization. In order to know who and where we are in space and to feel that we are vital, alive beings, subtleties are essential. Furthermore, it is not just acutely traumatized individuals who are disembodied; most Westerners share a less dramatic but still impairing disconnection from their inner sensate compasses. Given the magnitude of the primordial and raw power of our instincts, the historical role of the church and other cultural institutions in subjugating the body is hardly surprising.
In contrast, various (embodied) spiritual traditions have acknowledged the “baser instincts” not as something to be eliminated, but rather as a force in need of, and available for, transformation. In Vipassana meditation and various traditions of tantric Buddhism (such as Kum Nye), the goal is “to manifest the truly human spiritual qualities of universal goodwill, kindness, humility, love, equanimity and so on.”177 These traditions, rather than renouncing the body, utilize it as a way to “refine” the instincts. The essence of embodiment is not in repudiation, but in living the instincts fully as they dance in the “body electric,” while at the same time harnessing their primordial raw energies to promote increasingly subtle qualities of experience.178
As the song by Dory Previn suggests, mystical experiences that are not experienced in the body just don’t “stick”; they are not grounded. Trauma sufferers live in a world of chronic dissociation. This perpetual state of disembodiment keeps them disoriented and unable to engage in the here and now. As mentioned earlier, trauma survivors, however, are not alone in being disembodied; a lower level of separation between body/mind is widespread in modern culture, affecting all of us to a greater or lesser degree.
Recall the distinction made in the German language between the word Körper, meaning a physical body, and Leib, which translates to English as the “lived (or living) body.” The term Leib reveals a much deeper generative meaning than does the purely physical Körper, which is not unlike “corpse.” A gift of trauma recovery is the rediscovery of the living, sensing, knowing body. The poet and writer D. H. Lawrence inspires us all with this reflection on the living, knowing body:
My belief is in the blood and flesh as being wiser than the intellect. The body-unconscious is where life bubbles up in us. It is how we know that we are alive, alive to the depths of our souls and in touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos.
Trauma sufferers, in their healing journeys, learn to dissolve their rigid defenses. In this surrender they move from frozen fixity to gently thawing and, finally, free flow. In healing the divided self from its habitual mode of dissociation, they move from fragmentation to wholeness. In becoming embodied they return from their long exile. They come home to their bodies and know embodied life, as though for the first time. While trauma is hell on earth, its resolution may be a gift from the gods.
Finally, Jack London describes the enlightenment afforded by meeting and transforming trauma. He writes, in The Call of the Wild, “There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.” This awakening of our life force, transmuted from survival to ecstatic aliveness, is truly the intrinsic gift laid at our feet and waiting to be opened through this journey of sweet surrender to the sensate world within, whether we are survivors of trauma or simply casualties of Western culture.