Tag Archives: childhood

Building Relationships With Relational Mindfulness

Relational mindfulness, is the humanistic practice of compassionately relating to others, with an open mind and mutual respect. By putting aside your own beliefs and judgments, you can better empathize and understand others from their perspective.

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Bio

Shari Foos is a Marriage and Family Therapist, adjunct professor and the creator of The Narrative Method, a California 501c3 non-profit organization. Part of the Human Connection movement, TNM creates programs, products and experiences that address the growing isolation and need for real connection through sharing stories. Foos also co-founded the Bridge in 1999, a free humanities program for low-income adults at Antioch University Los Angeles. She received a MS in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and a MA in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles.

As a sought-after expert on the subject of, relationships, remote group dynamics and meaningful connection, her writing and commentary have appeared in a range of online and print publications and podcasts, including Real SimpleHuffington Post, Women’s Health, KBLA, Fatherly, Thrive Global, Shondaland, The LA Weekly, Sparks & Honey Culture Briefings, Sondership, Let Pleasure be The Measure, and Bustle. Ms. Foos serves on the board of the City Kids Foundation and is the recipient of the New Directions for Veterans Community Hero Award (2015) and The Antioch University Los Angeles Lifetime Achievement Award (2016).

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Childhood trauma affects our adult relationships

Shari: I do think every one of us has had, trauma, different degrees, but we certainly all know the feeling of loss or shame or humiliation, or unfair treatment etc. I think of emotions like a piano with all of the keys, we have all of them to different extents at different times. But even if we don't always use those really high notes or the low, low, low, notes, they're there and that serves as our empathy. And because of that, we can sit with someone who's going through something terrible that maybe in our day-to-day life, we've never experienced, but we can feel it in our soul because it's a human experience.

When we put ourselves aside to be truly present and available with our lovingness acceptance or non-judgment or empathy, to hear someone's story, from their perspective, not our judgment or assumptions. That person feels better. No matter what the problem is, they feel better, because without being heard, we go crazy, that is all part of, relational mindfulness.

When someone comes to you who you love, and they're really excited about something and you're so excited with them, that’s when you are aligned, right? You are, head-to-head, heart to heart. That's easy. But when somebody comes to you, with a complexity that you have a lot of feelings about whether it's addiction or someone's choice of spouse or whatever that may be. It's more difficult. And that's why we practice awareness, wonder, empathy that is called, AWE, or, relational mindfulness.

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Building relational mindfulness with AWE

Myrna: Exactly. And here's where I think it's going to lead into something else, I know you're interested in, which is, relational mindfulness.

You had a bad childhood bridge, the gap for us. How did you go from having a bad childhood to being a therapist, and a, marriage therapist? Did it have something to do with your parents’ marriage?

Shari: Well, yeah, that wasn't very good, my father was a rageaholic and it was at a time where even more so than now, there was a lack of understanding about, mental health. And so, he wouldn't seek treatment and it just wasn't in the mentality of people then. So as a result of my having a childhood in which I was wounded, and on top of that, I was never heard or seen, you know, and it's not uncommon. Lots of people grow up like that, but don't know that it could be better. So, I was fortunate in that I had friends and I would go to their houses and see like, Wait a minute. This is different from my house.

I watched Leave It to Beaver, where the father would, talk, about it in the library. Our family definitely didn't have talks.  As a result, and probably because of who I came in as into the world, I've just always been incredibly passionate about what makes people feel behave. So, I would study my father,  the sweat on his upper lip, depending on what was happening there. I knew he was about to blow, and that's when I got interested in, body language. 

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Relational mindfulness starts with reading body language

Myrna: That is excellent on so many levels. One, let's, talk, about the, talk, issue. I mean, I love that, when I'm talking to someone on the show, I can always bring in personal experience.  I read a lot of books, I listen to podcasts and watch television shows.  Just yesterday, I was watching of all things Reba, where the it was meant to be comedy, but Van was talking to Reba about her relationship with her daughter and he says, you guys do something called, talk!

And that was so funny. And that's basically what you're just saying. You went to other places and saw people actually talking and there was no talking going on in your house. So, you're right, about your, childhood trauma. Everything starts from there. In fact, I was even reading this book yesterday and it says that every child goes through some kind of emotional damage, even the ones that think they had a great, childhood.

So, talk to us now about, relational mindfulness, and how this, awareness, builds, relationships.  You know, a lot of times men has moods, and women have moods, and being aware of when they're going into a mood or something could be, relational mindfulness.

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Transform Your Mind Podcast Pandora
Transform Your Mind Podcast Pandora

Talking is the start of communication

Shari: Right, that's a great concept. And it's a great question. Here's again, I know it's a new word. It's gonna take a while to sink in. But that talking thing, talk, talk, whatever. When you live with someone, you don't have to consciously think whoa, his shoulders are slumped or, her bottom lip is really pouty  but there is a tremendous value in our being able to break down the, communication, the nuanced, communication, that is silent, because it's one thing that we rely on we rely on it not just for survival.

That's what lovemaking is. And that's what disconnecting is. So, here's, here's a good thing that you may do consciously or unconsciously, but you could see that the other persons in a bad mood, and then maybe it triggers you to think, Oh, great. Now I got to take care of you. You know, I have some needs too, but had you been able to, talk, to the person you both might have found out what was going on with each other? Here's the number one thing to do. It's so easy. If you need to have a serious, talk, because when we, talk, about, relational mindfulness, it's a very deliberate action.

It would be really hard to live in that 24/7 You know, but it's a state of hyper awareness. Of the impact of your words, settled communications, as well as the other person's. And the idea is you never begin a conversation like that, unless both people in this moment feel willing to be selfless and take turns listening.

And it's okay. It's gotta be okay if the persons not there. Because we know that sometimes they'll say, okay, I'll talk about something. And if your heart isn't into it, and a person is asking you to really look at it from my perspective, if there's resistance, it's not a good time to talk about it. It's okay, let's wait.  That's, relational mindfulness.

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Relational mindfulness builds deeper connections

Honestly, you could cancel out so many problems with, relational mindfulness. It's just good to hear for 20 minutes five minutes, whatever. Would you be willing to have a session of all where we're both agreeing to mutual respect, awareness, wonder and empathy, taking turns sharing our feelings and then reflecting them back to the other person.

Reflecting them back in the storyteller, making sure that they've got it right. And lovingly, of course, correcting each other, then we've got it right. Now we can move on to another point that the same person estimate or the other person can share their perspective, but constantly check in because it's a lot to put yourself aside, especially when somebody is saying things that like, you know, 10 minutes ago.

Wait a minute. I don't agree with that. So, one thing I often will do for myself is I'll keep a little pen and paper just so that I can get something off my mind. I don't even have to look at it to scribble it.

Or ask the person to stop, but everybody realizes that this is a very focused state that is difficult to maintain. There are times we maintain it for a long time, especially for meeting somebody new who may not be pushing our buttons the way our spouse does, but who out there has or has had a spouse has never felt like I've told you that a million times before.

I mean, if they had said what they thought they had said, you would have heard it. The problem is either in the delivery or the receiving, let's find out. Let's find out with the, communication.

Transform Your Mind Amazon
Transform Your Mind Amazon

Awareness wonder and empathy

Myrna: That's a good point. So, you're saying when they say that I've told you a million times, they've said it in their heads but not to you?

Shari: Or the way that they're articulating it? isn't getting through to you.  A lot of times, they're saying the words but their body action is not is not conveying the message, and the receiver doesn't actually believe it.

Myrna: So that's great. But I want to circle back to something you said there where you're right sometimes is not the right time to ask somebody to talk or ask somebody to get into. I like that, you know, awareness, wonder, and, empathy. I normally work with energy, because I can feel, energy. And I know when it's not the right time because of, energy. How do you respond with that?

Shari: Well, I think there are two factors for me in terms of reading someone else. One is certain things are obvious. For instance, if someone's crying, you don't necessarily know right off the bat, why the person is crying, or if they're crying for joy or sadness. You soon see the difference. But we can misinterpret someone because of the way they think about something.

So even though I pay attention to my instincts, I always check in so you know if I see someone's upset and I feel like they want to be alone, I still want to say I don't know what's going on. I don't know if you want to, talk, about it, but I want you to know I'm here for you or I want you to know I'm so sorry I have to leave or whatever is true for you.

Myrna: I like that, because sometimes you see something and there's one and why are you bothering me? If you're saying you're just checking in, I don't know if you want to, talk, about it or not. That's good, but I'm just checking in let me know when you want to, talk, or something like that.

Transform Your Mind Podcast Player FM
Transform Your Mind Podcast Player FM

What is relational mindfulness

We're touching a lot of stuff on, relational mindfulness. How would you describe, relational mindfulness?

Shari: Relational mindfulness, is the humanistic practice of compassionately relating to others, with an open mind and mutual respect. By putting aside your own beliefs and judgments, you can better empathize and understand others from their perspective. And that's really what it is. So, the idea is, we take turns, especially if we're having a problem with each other, we've already tried both talking at the same time.

And I know, we both know, we're right, but I'm right. Okay, we've done that. And at some point, we may get to a place where we decide I'd rather communicate than be right sometimes I'd rather apologize can be right, because if you perceive that my action, or behavior, or style or subtle communication was offensive, it doesn't really matter. If that was my intention. I am sorry. I'm especially sorry, that wasn't my intention.

Google Podcast Transform Your Mind
Google Podcast Transform Your Mind

How does awareness wonder and empathy deepen relationships

Myrna: How do you think that, awareness, wonder, and, empathy, deepens, relationships?  What does the science say?

Shari: Well, first of all, one thing that connects our brains is, eye contact, which we can accomplish online which is amazing. Our, eye contact, connects us, syncs our brains. And if we were in MRI machines, you will see our brains are lit up in the same place. But if our backs are to each other, first of all, we don't know what expression is on someone's face.

Maybe their faces are mean. If you're at some level of aggravation, it’s a good time to not have an, AWE, session. Take care of yourself first, run around the block, take a shower, ask for a hug if you're able, you know, but we need to do what we can do to kind of get our homeostasis back. I suggest to people this self-soothing tool that you can do any place at any time. You take your dominant hand, put it on your heart, and when you really start feeling your heartbeat, you let your hand take comfort from that and vice versa. So, it's a loop of calm. I don't know exactly how I'm going to deal with this moment.

Conclusion

Myrna: Tell us about your company The Narrative Method.

Shari: This is the organization I founded in 2014. And it is devoted to bringing together people from completely different backgrounds to connect through sharing the stories of their lives and creative experiences. So, as I mentioned earlier, we do writing groups that are for free on online and they last one hour. You write for a total of 20 minutes, you see pictures, you get prompts. You go into breakouts; you share your stories. At the end, we do this mosaic where everybody pitches in one sentence. One hour, in and out.

Nobody has writer's block. Nobody's judged, nobody's wrong. There's no mistakes possible. People have a blast with themselves, because we're really working on how to turn on your creative faucet without that voice inside that says how many.  And then the conversation groups which we do on Thursday nights are a matter of seeing compelling videos about anything.

Then getting a prompt and going into breakouts and sharing a story that just came up as a result of those things. And so, people get to know each other because there's no small talk. And it's fascinating to hear, not just another person's story, but whoa, that made you think of this? It's fascinating. It's so cool. We offer those free. We have classes, we do trainings. The website is www.thenarrativemethod.org

https://youtu.be/56vHerZMDlk
Additional Resources

Nothing is Impossible: How to Turn Life's Challenges Into Opportunity

How to Release Childhood Trauma of Guilt Shame

Trauma, is a shock to the, nervous system. And when, childhood trauma, is stored instead of released, it can cause physical and, mental health, issues down the road. When, trauma, occurs,  in an effort of protection, your brain temporarily pauses your memory processing system, and the experience is not stored as traditional memories.

Today I am talking with Emily Francis. Emily  is the best selling author of “Healing Ourselves Whole”

Listen to the full interview here:

 

Healing Ourselves Whole will give you the tools you need to clean your emotional house from top to bottom, complete with journal prompts and access to audio meditations for you to listen along to as you read.

As a trained, body worker, Emily Francis offers a refreshing perspective into healing, trauma. She reveals unique knowledge of the body as a holder for memory. Emily will lead you on a path deep within yourself to rearrange the ways that, pain, and, trauma, have been holding you back from whole body, mind, spirit, and, energy healing. You will rearrange the dialogue within your body memory systems as well as learn a practice to re-birth by healing your, inner child, and adolescent selves, coming into the present to create the best adult self possible.

This groundbreaking interactive book contains a journal and access to audio meditations for you to listen to as you read. The meditations will help you dig deep into past, trauma, and discover when and how, trauma, took root. Learn to get in touch with various parts of the physical and, energy body, and how to use them to let go of stored, traumas, and rediscover the deeply held joys that have also been stored within the body. From this, you will learn to live from a new mindful and powerful space.

book: Healing Ourselves Whole from trauma
book: Healing Ourselves Whole

How to release trauma from the body

My Psychotherapist told me to do something called catch and release. Which means whenever you catch yourself being triggered by past, trauma. This happens whenever you begin to feel bad, and you are not sure why. Whenever you feel your body going into reaction mode,  breathe in and then release it.  This allows the feelings you have stuffed down to come out.

Myrna – Emily can you share with our readers how they can  to us start to release, traumatic experiences, from their body?

Emily – In my book, Healing Ourselves Whole, I help my readers put their own hands on their body. When I am helping my clients in person, I help them, release trauma,  in their body by putting my hands on their body to help them locate where the, trauma, had gone in, or the shame, or the guilt.

Why our bodies hold Trauma

Our muscles and tissues store the memory of, trauma.  They also store memories of Joy.  That's my work; but I couldn't write a book and teach you how to do Hands On Healing, so I wrote a book teaching you how to dialogue inside your body.  This book “Healing Ourselves Whole” has a chapter for every emotion we hold in our body. We go through a 15 to 20-minute meditation on releasing, body trauma.

The workbook included with the book allows you to journal and go through all the senses to find the, trauma, carrot or the shame carrot or the guilt or grief. I teach you through this book how to do the body work by yourself. I'm not a therapist, so some behaviors and thoughts still need to be treated by, hypnosis therapy, like EMDR.

I work on the part of the body that is holding the, pain, and blocking the healing, so you still need your, cognitive therapist.

Childhood trauma and body trauma are connected

I have some, childhood trauma, and I know that until I became conscious that I was stuffing things down instead of understanding my emotions, I never understood that my, childhood trauma, was influencing my present. My, childhood trauma, also affected my relationships earlier in life before I was able to start to release them.

This is a great topic on releasing, chronic pain, because some people go to their graves not understanding that their quality of life was hampered by, what happened to them. Sometimes the, wounds, were only from, childhood, but relationships earlier in their lives eg.  lovers, friends, teachers etc.

Emily, what made you become a wellness expert?

I graduated undergraduate with a science and, wellness, degree then I went on to become an aerobic yoga instructor. Then I started suffering from extreme panic attacks and agoraphobia, so I went from loving to be on the stage, to not wanting to leave my house.  I was a college cheerleader, I worked out every day, I was at the gym three to five hours a day teaching different classes and I was like rocking.

The more crowded the better.  I fed off the energy and then I turned twenty-five!  I stopped drinking and the mask dropped and the crazy came up. All the, pain, that I had stuff down came to a flying head and I had to stop myself from extreme anxiety and panic attacks.

It took seven years for me to understand that the reason for my anxiety and panic attacks were because of, childhood trauma, that I had stuffed down. I missed a lot of my hot years as a young adult because I couldn’t hang out with friends or go to bars without feeling like I was crazy.  I really stepped away from life and just sat out and watched life pass me by. My, mental health, was of grave concern to me.  I prayed a lot.  I did a lot of intensive work, meditative work.  I went to a million different, healers.  if I heard of something for, body trauma, I was there.  I went through 7 years of, holistic therapy, and nothing worked until I finally broke down and tried a child's dose of an antidepressant.

When I was able to heal myself, I want to share and that is why I wrote the book Healing Ourselves Whole

Google Podcast Transform Your Mind
Google Podcast Transform Your Mind

Can medications help with Childhood Trauma?

After 7 years of looking for a treatment, I came across a book by a psychotherapist named Tom Rutledge.  He suggested medications. I tried it and it worked for me. The antidepressant worked because it regulated my brain and here is the thing that I learnt from Tom.  I was reading his book and embracing fear and I decided to write this letter to him. I wrote that I was a big phony and a liar, and I've been writing all these years and it was  just crap.  I am crap and I wrote this long letter.  It was like reading my autobiography. I just wrote out all the things I had been telling myself all these years.

Tom Rutledge replied that I should consider medication. He said that we must first regulate the brain before we can start the healing process and suggested that we should try medication. I rejected medication, because it goes against everything, I believe in.  It goes against my holistic principal, it was a Band-Aid. I said no I'm not interested, and he wrote back. He said there's a part that I think you've missed, the brain and the mind are not the same thing.  The mind is where your thoughts and behaviors are, the brain is an organ in your body. It’s like your heart or your liver or kidneys.  You would not hesitate to take medication if your heart or liver or kidneys were malfunctioning.

But, mental illness, comes with a stigma. People hesitate to take medication because they feel it makes them crazy. Antidepressants are just something to regulate your brain. The brain is an organ and you're missing some chemicals in your brain and that is the reason for the anxiety and panic attacks.  Once you get that regulated all the work that you've done because you've done significant with healers will be able to come through.

Book: Hollywood endings How to get one
Book: Hollywood endings How to get one

Hollywood Endings and How to Get One

 Yes, you can create what you want with imagination an intention. The movie themes the world loves are few and simple; they are the themes that have been portrayed over and over since Hollywood began to make movies. These classics have the most wonderful endings: love overcomes all; good defeats evil; the wayward child comes home. Anyone can be a hero, and everyone has a Guardian Angel.

Hollywood Endings – Using Imagination and Intention is about self-awareness, recovery and enlightenment. It's for anyone who has ever wanted or dreamed of having a “Hollywood ending.” It is for those of us who never had a role model to show us how it's done. It celebrates the wonder of the movies and urges us to see movies once to be entertained, and then return to see them again to learn from them. We all deserve a Hollywood ending. This book can show you how with life lessons from Dances With Wolves, National Velvet, Die Hard, and The Color Purple, to name a few.

Rewrite your own story and give it a Hollywood ending.

Soundcloud Transform your mind podcast
Transform your Mind Soundcloud podcast

Trauma gets stuck in the body

Trauma, gets attached to your tissues, because the experience of stress, particularly, childhood trauma, causes stress and can trigger active survival responses of fight, flight, or freeze. When your, body trauma, can't activate or complete these responses, those sensations become trapped in your nervous system.

Trauma, is a shock to the, nervous system. And when that, trauma, is stored instead of released, it can cause physical and, mental health, issues down the road. When, trauma, occurs,  in an effort of protection, your brain temporarily pauses your memory processing system, and the experience is not stored as traditional memories.

Instead of being stored as a complete memory, traumatic experiences are thought to be stored as fragments of pictures of, body sensations or, body trauma.  These fragments are unprocessed and thus don’t fit in the system as they should. Because they don’t fit, these fragments can surface unexpectedly as nightmares, flashbacks, or general angst and unease. Most of the time you don't know why you are feeling uneasy.

Transform Your Mind iHeart Radio
iHeart Radio

How to Release Trauma Trapped in the Body

International Trauma-Healing Institute founder Gina Ross has developed a simple process called Emotion Aid. Here is a summary of those steps you can use to begin to,  release trauma, trapped in your body.

  1. First, assess where you are: rate your stress or upset from a low of 1 to a high of 7. If it is high, first practice the following Grounding Steps.
    1. Begin by Butterfly Hugging and Tapping– hug yourself and then alternately tap on your arms, from side to side, 25 times. Then take a deep breath. Repeat this until your stress level begins to drop noticeably.
    2. Next, Send Roots into the Ground. Notice your feet or, if your seated, your back, buttocks, and back of your legs in the chair.  Now notice your feet or lower body being firmly connected to the floor, then to the ground, like roots going deep into the earth. Take a deep breath. Then gaze about the room and notice objects or textures about the room, remaining connected to your “roots.”
    3. Finally, Notice Breathing: Put one hand on your chest and one hand your belly. Now just be with your breath, not trying to change it, but just noticing the rhythm of it. Then make a heart shape with your fingertips and bring awareness to your beating heart.

How to discharge body trauma

  1. Now begin to Discharge Sensations and Release Stress.
    1. First, notice your breath and Breathe Notice any sensations that come up naturally. As you release, trauma, and  stress hormones, they will present through sensations like shaking, heat, sweating, yawning, goosebumps, changed breath, and gurgling in the stomach. Be curious about the feelings and be with them, and they will naturally discharge. Do not judge or critique what you are feeling or sensing.
    2. Next, briefly review the, childhood trauma, or troubling thoughts that lead to the sensations. As you review, notice the Feelings that come up as you consider what happened. It’s important to go slow so that you’re only allowing the activation of one feeling at a time. Just be with it and give it plenty of time. Then notice the discharge that emerges as you follow the sensations. (Know that you can temporarily set aside sensations and emotions that you are not focusing on at the moment. For example, imagine putting them on a shelf for the moment.)
    3. Then work with the Thoughts. Again, as you notice one thought at a time, observe the sensations that show up with these thoughts. Let go of the judgment or criticism. Just be present and continue to observe what happens next and experience the sensations discharging and releasing from the body.
    4. Now notice and bring to awareness Resources. A resource is anything that feels strong and calm to you. These can be external (for example, the kind eyes of a good friend) or internal (perhaps the memory of a personal achievement). As you recall or hold these resources notice the sensations that show up in your body. Take a few minutes to feel the sense of calm and strength in your body.

Conclusion

Listen to Emily radio show All About Healing 

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Additional Resources

Drug and Alcohol Treatments for Women with Trauma