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November 2001
Releasing Muscle-Bound Memories

By David Drier
 


Only through your body do you experience your life and your being in the world. —Alexander Lowen, M.D.

In dealing with the awful events of September 11th, an often unexplored avenue for therapeutic release is the use of deep bodywork and other body-psychotherapy approaches. Because all of the events in our lives are encoded into our very cells, deep forms of bodywork, applied with sensitivity, in a safe setting, can be beneficial in helping a client to access and release much of the strong feelings that may have been stored as a result of the traumatic events of that fateful day. Feelings of anguish, rage, fear, anxiety and resentment. Your breathing may have become faster and shallower, your throat constricted, and your body tighter. Various internal states of tension would also have occurred. As one of my patients put it: “Your body sheds the tears that your eyes can’t.”

Everyone has what I call “body memory,” a memory of your own emotional history that goes right down to the cellular level. Each person’s body has a unique pattern of emotional holding, an emotional “posture.” Memory alone can trigger this pattern: If you think about any event which you experienced that had strong emotional content for you, you may notice how your posture changes accordingly.

We also repress many emotions by breathing less, which dampens our feelings. We can also tighten our musculature, which cuts off the natural rhythmic flow of energy that a feeling generates. Repressed thoughts, feelings and memories block the normal flow of life-energy in the body, disrupting the normal working of the immune system and other bodily systems. Each of us has the power to restore this bodymind to integrity.

Look at trauma not as a disease, but as a by-product of going into survival mode, with the cause in this case being the terrorist attacks on New York. We feel threatened and, if we are overwhelmed by the threat, so that we cannot or do not defend ourselves, we get stuck in this survival mode.

The responses to threat are instinctive and biological: fight, flight or freeze. Under a sensed threat, we enter what’s called the arousal cycle. Muscles tense, our senses prick up, searching for possible danger. If we locate the source, and perceive a real threat, we enter stage two and we mobilize. The adrenaline starts pumping. In the third stage, we discharge this energy by completing the defensive actions. A fourth stage moves us eventually back into equilibrium, but if we stay overwhelmed by the threat, we have what trauma recovery expert Peter Levine calls “hyperarousal,” a response meant only to create a short-term defense. Left untreated, it becomes the symptoms of trauma. These can include the following: Breathing difficulties, muscle spasm, rapid heart rate, feeling cold, and mental states such as denial, feeling helpless, flashbacks, mood swings, hyperactivity, sleep disorders, sensitivity to loud noises, nightmares, panic attacks, amnesia,
chronic fatigue, immune dysfunction, depression, and so on.

Trauma disconnects us from our families, friends and selves. As a result, healing may also take time. At the body level, fixed muscular patterns reinforce attitudes and defensive responses that actually restrict our options for how to behave. They reduce the level of feeling. With enough restriction, one will actually lose all sensation of a body part. For example, if we’re talking about the gut, one may get out of touch with one’s gut feelings or instincts.

So—how best to deal with all of this? First, we can see that just talking, while helpful, will not bring the best solution, because it ignores the body. My own work therefore combines deep bodywork to break down adhesions in the tissue, allowing for physical and emotional “flow” to occur. Patients begin to sense their bodies more, and access their feelings in conjunction with their bodies, rather than as simply mental events. We may also talk at these times, patients often speaking freely as feelings or concerns come up.

As a chiropractor, I see how this in turn helps clear up chronic cases of neck and back pain, when the emotional component is handled this way. One patient, after sessions of deep myofascial release to his jaw, sobbed deeply, his body shaking in wave-like motions. His treatment resulted in a feeling of clarity about his rage towards his father, who had been an alcoholic and physically abusive. He was calmer, at a deep level, and his jaw relaxed enough to restore some of his hearing loss.

I also incorporate Bioenergetic exercises, to promote emotional “flow,” which takes the form of pulsing, wave-like motions of the body like those experienced by the patient I just mentioned. Patients begin to sense how feelings play out in their bodies. This wave motion is the involuntary flow of emotion, a form of discharge. The obvious example is human orgasm, but it may be experienced with many emotions. Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich called this life-energy “orgone.” Other cultures call it chi, ki, prana or ruach.

I work with the client to uncouple fear from the freezing response, completing the cycle of arousal. Some of the results are: Increased body awareness, grounding, and feelings related to trauma are clarified and validated. Patients connect to their own self-healing and strength, while learning new ways to discharge repressed or overwhelming emotion.

Trauma, even immense trauma like that of September 11th, can be an opportunity for change. We may take stock of the true value of our life. The body-psychotherapy approaches that I utilize are oriented to help the client to discharge stored emotional trauma, to move out of the prison which is being built into the body, allowing the spirit to soar. Ideally, with effective therapy, our mind can begin to work in tandem with our body’s instincts and feelings, and we can access our more thoughtful nature. The result is more energy, enlarged perceptions, and emotions that don’t get stuck. We relax more, become more spontaneous, and enjoy life more.

Dr. David Drier is a chiropractic bodyworker, whose treatments include Deep Myofascial Release, Emotional Release Bodywork, Lymph Drainage and Vibrational Medicine. He practices in Nanuet, NY and can be reached at (845) 624-2447 or bodyworks1@Juno.com.

 


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