Opening up to a stranger

It takes time to create a relationship of trust, especially when life experience has taught us otherwise.

In 2007 I started a four-year training in psychotherapy focusing on creativity and the imagination at The Institute of Arts in Therapy and Education (IATE) in London. I didn’t have any formal art qualifications and didn’t then think of myself as an artist. What drew me in was an enjoyment of making practical things which began as a child and continued into adulthood. In essence, a love of playing with shapes.

A compulsory requirement was weekly personal therapy. I had come from the world of coaching and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) so had no idea how therapy would be different. I decided to keep a diary. My first session describes how I was so determined to stay strong and yet cried. I was struck by the painful experience of expressing unspoken thoughts and feelings.

In the BBC’s Secret History documentary, Bruce Springsteen talks candidly about his early sense of disconnection and of feeling invisible. He describes an enormous sense of pain in which he felt as though he was disappearing and fading away. His struggles which emerge through his music reveal a journey of re-discovery in which he finds meaning and impact through self-expression and connection with others. 

Springsteen shares in public what many people experience in private, this sense of a half-lived life, a life of going through the motions. This might manifest in a whole host of symptoms such as depression, anxiety, panic, irritability, worthlessness, shame and eating distress. Whilst not ultimately fulfilling, it is an ingenious and creative way of coping with painful experiences and memories through numbing in and out of life.  

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used to create them. We might take steps to do things differently, reaching some of our goals, yet too often we bounce back, get stuck or go round in circles. This can leave us feeling even more despondent, frustrated and angry.

Without resilience and support, this sense of dashed hope is like a double fall because, over time, it becomes harder to pick yourself up. You may think this is who you are or who you will ever be. Shame and self-criticism are bedfellows that can keep you hidden and small. You may oscillate between feeling down with no energy to do anything. At other times, you may find bursts of energy and determination yet nothing lasts, and you’re back to those states of feeling stuck, lost, hopeless, helpless, worthless and desperate again.

So how do you step out of learned patterns of behaviour that keep you down and invisible? How do you step up and into an upgraded version of yourself? 

Dr Bessel van der Kolk, the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Boston says in his landmark book, The Body Keeps The Score, that “for real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.” This can seem at odds if you consider you have had a happy or normal childhood yet every life comes with unique challenges. 

So what does Dr van der Kolk mean by “danger”? This goes beyond external life threat, or those times when you can see and step away from danger. He is including something far more subtle, and that is the internal perception of threat when there is no escape or resolution. This means that even when the real or imagined threat has passed, the body can continue to feel as if it is in danger. It is not safe to turn off the internal alarm. Anticipation of threat is an additional factor especially when there’s no certainty of when or what will happen next. The body cannot switch off. 

From an evolutionary perspective, it is all about survival. Out of awareness, our neural circuits continuously scan for danger. Am I safe, am I not? This is called neuroception, a term coined in 1994 by Dr Stephen Porges, founder of the Polyvagal Theory. While you may override your instincts and tell yourself you are safe, the automatic parts of the body have historically learned something different and will instinctively defend and protect. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that “stress is the health epidemic of the 21st Century.” There is healthy stress, as in the thrive state, short term acute stress and chronic stress that has developed over the long term. This may have been high or low level, or a mix. Chronic stress can feel normal because the body develops its own set point, but it can take its toll over time. Patterns of tension build up and it is hard to let go and relax, especially when you add in everyday stress. This can explain why minor events can erupt like a storm in a teacup. You blow a fuse, go over the top, slam doors, have an outburst and get defensive when normally you’re quiet and calm. 

There is a tipping point when life can get too much and the balance of life is really upset. Self-correction doesn’t work as it did before. Plus our bodies change over time. We may experience more pain and symptoms, feel suicidal or perpetually drained, tired and unwell. We may not be able to put our finger on exactly what is wrong. We can turn to our coping mechanisms, but depending on what they are, these can create even more disrepair and imbalance.

So how can we take Dr van der Kolk’s guidance and transition away from danger towards living in “the reality of the present”?  Sometimes the first step is driven by desperation followed by courage, then curiosity. Adding in resources that support health in everyday life are key in supporting healing. The task is embodied mindfulness, bringing awareness and choice to habitual survival responses. This is an internal sense of re-connecting with the moment-to-moment experience of being in the body. The result is a personal compass, enabling discerning choices that support less striving and more compassionate presence in life.

We may not all have the creative talent of Springsteen but creativity is the essence of how we survive. Our bodies are artists in that they both reveal and disguise, even if this is largely out of awareness. In As you Like It, Shakespeare wrote, ‘”All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” We are actors who may not yet have clarity about what we want other than life to be different. 

Back to my first therapy session in which I describe “sleeping dogs beginning to wake up from the pit of my stomach”. I didn’t know it at the time but this was fear and my therapist was taking things steady and slow. My diary records: “Afterwards, I look in the mirror at my red face and think about what has happened. How am I going to change? What is going to happen? I haven’t been told to think differently, to do anything differently, in fact nothing at all, yet somehow I feel better for opening up to this particular stranger.”