Somatic Experiencing

(Written in December 2009)
I’m feeling sad and scared.  I got the baby and talked to myself as I did with Caryn.  “It’s OK.  I’m here and I’ll stay with you and I’ll protect you.  Mother is dead, she can’t hurt you now.” That helped a little.  I’m still feeling sad but I feel bigger and fuller.  Caryn says building the resource incrementally is good.  Just a little improvement is good enough.  So we worked with me holding the baby — she brought me two babies so I had the larger one hold the smaller one.  Realized this was my childhood as oldest sister, a child trying to parent a smaller child.  When I first got there, I curled up in my corner and tried to be as small as possible.  Caryn asked if I could do it differently, and then I relaxed and paid attention to my breathing and stopped frantically trying to get smaller.  Then I sat up & discharged: shaking and yawning.  Caryn suggested remembering times when I was doing OK, and I told her about teaching Az last Sunday at the end of the first half, and about teaching it at Helen’s memorial celebration, and what Randi said about me being a good person.  “This is who I am.  This is what I do.” I was thinking that maybe my recent realization that I am a good person set off this backlash.  But I think it’s probably more about reading Dream Country, with its theme of parent & children, of children taken away and then rescued, of animals abused and freed.  I realized that I identify with the animals that were kept in cages that were too small so their spines got curved and their legs bowed.  I’m no longer in the cage — Mother is dead — but I’m still trying to stay small.