{"id":3739,"date":"2013-05-08T15:56:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T19:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=3739"},"modified":"2013-09-11T14:04:01","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T18:04:01","slug":"in-pieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=3739","title":{"rendered":"In Pieces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broken in a pile on your bedroom floor is a state I know well. \u00a0I recently read a story by Julie Peters in the Elephant Journal<\/a>. \u00a0It’s a great piece about a little known Hindu Goddess whose name is Akhilandeshvari.\u00a0 I used to fall apart in pieces all the time and found it scary and tried desperately to put myself back together again.\u00a0 One day it occurred to me that falling into pieces creates an opportunity to put myself back together differently.\u00a0 I liked the idea and it made me feel better about falling apart.\u00a0 \u201cMy pieces swung in wide orbits without a center\u201d is how I described it in my journal.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until I was working with Somatic Experiencing that I had a revelation.\u00a0 When I went to pieces, they fell on a floor.\u00a0 Until that moment, I hadn\u2019t been aware of a \u201cfloor.\u201d\u00a0 The \u201cfloor\u201d was a container I had built doing Somatic Experiencing work. I realized that now there was a floor, I didn\u2019t have to worry about any pieces falling into outer darkness.<\/p>\n

Once, working with an art therapist, I made a number of pieces that I was intending to use in a collage.\u00a0 At one point I said \u201cI\u2019m not a collage, I\u2019m a constellation.\u201d\u00a0 My therapist laughed and suggested I use the pieces as a mobile instead.\u00a0 What a great idea!\u00a0 I used wire and thread to combine the pieces.\u00a0 When I hung it in my stairwell, the pieces swung entertainingly.\u00a0 Much better image\/metaphor for a life.<\/p>\n

I find it very interesting that Akhilandeshvari gets herself up off the floor with the help of a crocodile.\u00a0 The crocodile is a reptile and the reptilian brainstem holds the instincts of flee-fight-freeze.\u00a0 The reptilian brainstem must be activated in order for the nervous system and the body to \u201cdigest\u201d the pieces of an indigestible trauma.\u00a0 Those of us who have been trained in the belief that\u00a0 our cognitive brains are running the show and that we must never be out of control find it very hard to allow the body\/brainstem to do what it needs to heal from trauma.<\/p>\n

Julie Peters translates Akhilanda as \u201cNever Not Broken,\u201d and describes her ride up from the floor:\u00a0 \u201cin pieces, warrior-style, on the back of a crocodile.\u00a0 Yee ha.\u201d\u00a0 I echo \u201cYee Ha!\u201d and know that riding down the river, in pieces, carried by the reptilian brainstem, is how I heal from trauma.<\/p>\n

Why Lying Broken in a Pile on Your Bedroom Floor is a Good Idea. ~ Julie (JC) Peters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Broken in a pile on your bedroom floor is a state I know well. \u00a0I recently read a story by Julie Peters in the Elephant Journal. \u00a0It’s a great piece about a little known Hindu Goddess whose name is Akhilandeshvari.\u00a0 … 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":[5,19,11,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healing","category-interesting-link","category-present-day","category-somatic-experiencing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739","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=3739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}