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(Written in September 2009)
Session with Caryn.  My corner was dismantled so I demanded it be set up and squinched right into it and started to cry while she was still bringing pillows.  She sat next to me and put her hands on my knee.  I talked about Katie and the period when she was learning to self-regulate, but could only do it when she was physically present with her foster mom.  (Suddenly I’m seeing why being with my friends, even if we aren’t doing grief work, is helping me to self-regulate.) Caryn said her body was helping my body self-regulate.  I did a lot of the usual discharge: shoulders hunching, yawning.  I tried to get as small as possible, I expressed anger.  At one point there was a sensation in my belly — on the surface, it was rounded and a little stiff, and very intense, almost burning, I couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold and if it wanted to expand or not.  I tracked it for a while and then realized it was like a soundless scream.  Once I understood that, it faded.  Writing now I see it as a bubble expanding, that wants to get bigger and pop, but is afraid to.  After a while I was so tired I collapsed over my legs.  Then I lay on my back with knees up, mostly tracking tension and discharge in my face.  Finally I got into a supported child pose so my face could completely relax.  Caryn recommends that I do that often during the day.
When it was time to leave, I felt a sinking of heart, and again, driving north, a wave of fear.  So I talked to the terrorized infant inside myself, I told her it was OK for her to have her feelings of terror and despair, and that I would stay there in them with her, I would feel them too, and not leave her.  I said it was hard work but I was willing to do it.  That seemed to help.
I’m seeing that the work with Caryn is on a very subtle but deep level.  There are no “breakthroughs” because of the need to titrate this intense material.  So I have a feeling of discouragement when I leave.  But in fact, I’m doing the work (and it is exhausting) but it may take a long time, months, maybe years.  So I really need to help of my friends to hold me while I do this hard and difficult work.

(Written in July 2010)
Went down to see Caryn.  The drive down was beautiful, blue sky, white clouds, wind & trees.  It was good to see her tho she looked a little harassed and hot, she’d been seeing people all day.  I went to my corner & we set up the cushions.  I told her about noticing at one point that I was sitting straighter in the car, but now I’ve lost it a little.  It feels more comfortable when I straighten up, but I don’t stay there.  So we worked on that.  She brought over a bench and had me put my hands on it, and imagine I was a quadruped.  Then curve my back up & down — it was a little like dog & cat stretch except that there was an emphasis on letting the shoulderblades meet when my belly was down.  Then Caryn had me press with my hands — use both hands and legs — to curl & uncurl my back while she pressed each vertebra so I would move them one by one.  She asked me to walk around.  I didn’t feel much different — I always feel self-conscious — but she said my spine was more flexible.  I came back & sat down feeling tired.  Caryn said I had just done a lot of work.  I bent over until the top of my head was on the floor.  When I straightened up, my stomach ached, so I hunched down again & comforted that part of me.  Caryn said I had just done a very big piece of work opening the front of the spine, and it made sense that part of me would feel vulnerable.  Once that part of me was comfortable, I could sit up & feel how the triangle of my knees & butt was very solid and supporting/grounding me and my upper half could move around freely.  The phrase came up “wiggling around” and I remembered mother’s scathing remark “that’s disgusting” as the 5-year-old daughter of a friend of Jo’s was wiggling around.  I was horrified & saw myself as bland, narrow, sexless, I was living at the Arlington Zen house and trying to be completely subdued and colorless.  Caryn asked if I could bring together both parts of me, the Zen straight and the wiggly child.  At first I thought I couldn’t, they were each ashamed of the other.  But I imagined holding them and loving them, and started to cry and cry.  At one point I felt so much grief that the wiggly one had been able to be present for so little of my life.  Caryn kept having me open my eyes so I wouldn’t get lost in the grief.  When that was over, I sat up straight again and felt how heavy the base was and how light the upper body.  I told Caryn about the time in the training when a battle between being weighed down & trying to pull up against it resolved itself into many tiny helium balloons, each holding up a package of heaviness.