{"id":155,"date":"2010-03-09T23:20:17","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T23:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=155"},"modified":"2010-03-23T20:44:11","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T20:44:11","slug":"somatic-experiencing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"Somatic Experiencing"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Written in April 2009)<\/p>\n

Intense session with Caryn.\u00a0 I described my sense of total despair at the beginning.\u00a0 Caryn suggested sitting with it, being curious about it.\u00a0 My body felt relaxed, flat, no energy.\u00a0 I think then some activation happened which started the process.\u00a0 Started with crying, followed my body to lie down and writhe, which became pounding & wanting to bang my head.\u00a0 Pounding became the gesture of wanting to push something along \u2014 I thought of my rope of grief and misery \u2014 there was also a sense of wanting to vomit, get something out of me.\u00a0 Caryn asked where in my body did I not feel the misery.\u00a0 I said in my arms & legs.\u00a0 She said to stay with that for a while.\u00a0 Then Caryn said she had a long piece of black cloth, and went to get it.\u00a0 I stuffed it in my front, pulling the end out of the neck.\u00a0 I pulled it out slowly with that same gesture of pushing along the seaweed rope.\u00a0 I pushed it all out and flung it away from me into a heap on the floor.\u00a0 Caryn asked me to talk to it, so I did.\u00a0 More effectively than an earlier time \u2014 I see I had done that from the head because I thought I \u201cought\u201d to, because of what Barbara said and intellectually knowing I must be angry…\u00a0 This time the anger came from the body, that\u2019s what counts, that\u2019s what works.\u00a0 So I told mother she was a nasty woman, that she\u2019d wrecked my life by leaving me alone too long.\u00a0 I talked about the nasty things she said to me.\u00a0 All I could feel coming from the black lump was denial so I said \u201cGo ahead and drink.\u00a0 You don\u2019t what to know what\u2019s happening, you don\u2019t want to hear my pain.\u201d Finally I felt finished.\u00a0 Caryn and I talked a little \u2014 maybe her trip to Wales and Greece.\u00a0 I thought of some good times with Mom: the birthday party and small transparent plastic animals, bringing out the Christmas decorations, going to the theater \u2014 Playhouse in the Park and Shakespeare at Litchfield.\u00a0 I should probably add when she gave me the loom, and the Russian box, and a good visit in Portland, perhaps one in Brunswick, and a good time with her after Dad\u2019s death when she wasn\u2019t drinking.\u00a0 A pretty pitiful harvest for one of the most important relationships in my life.
\nLeft out a piece. After pushing out the cloth, my hands wanted to claw and tear so Caryn brought a piece of paper and I tore most of it to bits.\u00a0 I left a few big pieces, suddenly realizing I was done and didn\u2019t have to keep doing it just because the amount of paper wasn\u2019t finished.\u00a0 I threw the pieces up in the air, and lay down in the middle of them and waved my arms & legs.\u00a0 Then I was tired and Caryn brought a cube that I could rest my legs on.\u00a0 Then I pushed the cube away and Caryn held it and turned it so I could both keep contact and have the satisfying feeling of pushing it away.\u00a0 At the end, lying in the middle of the torn paper with my knees on the cube, she said it was new for me to be lying flat in a symmetrical pose.\u00a0 Also, she asked me what it was like to have got rid of all that stuff.\u00a0 I said I felt hollow in the middle and protective of that space.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe \u201cseaweed rope\u201d came from a gesture in an earlier session, and became a piece of woven scraps of dark cloth, with white strips saying names of people who had abandoned me, and cruel things that Mom said to me.\u00a0 Eventually, I plan to use it as part of a ritual.<\/p>\n

Caryn McHose does Somatic Experiencing in Holderness, NH\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 See her website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Written in April 2009) Intense session with Caryn.\u00a0 I described my sense of total despair at the beginning.\u00a0 Caryn suggested sitting with it, being curious about it.\u00a0 My body felt relaxed, flat, no energy.\u00a0 I think then some activation happened … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-somatic-experiencing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}