Spectrums, Spirals, & Spheres (Part XI)

Spectrums, Spirals and Spheres.
Welcome to Part XI of the series exploring the question, “What does it mean to heal trauma?” While it is highly likely that those impacted by trauma (including myself!) would love it if the journey was simply finding a way to go from Point A (being traumatized) to Point B (living life as if it never happened), the reality is that the imprint of trauma probably never completely disappears. Which is not the same thing as saying that healing isn’t possible and doesn’t happen. It just happens that the idea that this is a linear journey is likely not an experience most folks have. As many of us may be seeing nowadays, just about everything exists on a spectrum. Perhaps the same goes for healing.

Healing as a spectrum relates to what we explored earlier within the framework of IPNB – health is on a spectrum of integration. Greater states of integration relate to greater felt states of health. More impeded states of integration relate to felt states of dis-ease or reduced wellbeing, as well as suffering. Healing would be similar. Greater states of integration relate to greater states of healing, and vice versa.

The thing to note about this perspective is the absence of a permanent state of ‘health’ or even a permanent state of ‘healing.’ This spectrum is dynamic. There is no permanence, no destination and no state in which all other states are eternally destroyed or eliminated. This idea is likely not attractive for the part of the self or mind that seeks a sense of unshakable (i.e., permanent, unchanging) safety and security. There is a certain aspect of the psyche that appears to want this, that wants undisturbed peace and harmony in the felt sense of constant safety and never-ending security; but what life seems to suggest and constantly foil is arriving at this destination. Add to this the idea of the “unattainable” statehood of sainthood or status as an enlightened being, finally arriving at the final release of all suffering and impermanence. There appear to be these particular beings that did it, that made it, that achieved nirvana. So why can’t we?

Personally, I question the assumption of this line of reasoning, the assumption that there was a destination or “place” that these beings (e.g., the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and others) “reached.” I would instead argue that the mind itself has colored and prejudiced the conception of what “happened” to these beings, suggesting that they achieved what everyone else has yet to achieve and may never achieve – a permanent felt sense of safety and security (not to mention a permanent residence in a state of higher consciousness). In other words, I think the idea of enlightenment or freedom or nirvana has been polluted by concepts of what these are (within a certain level of consciousness), and assumed that they contain an end to the fluctuations and ebbs and flows of life that we experience as suffering, as dukkha. Instead, I imagine that these higher (or deeper) states were and are realized by getting out of the game of safety, by seeing the lost-before-it-begins nature of the game of security. I imagine that there was a “yes, I want to feel safe” and “yes, I want to feel secure,” while also being with “I can let it be as it is.” Meaning, I can stop getting mixed up in the drama of working towards something that is not the point – the point is not to eliminate the desire to feel safe or secure, or achieve a permanent state, but instead, as the Buddha offered us, to recognize the impermanence of all things, including these desires and states in which we may, for a time, feel safe (or not) and secure (or not).

Bringing this idea back to healing, what we then conceive of is a dynamic spectrum upon which we move back and forth, sometimes in small moves and sometimes in dramatic shifts, but there is always movement. So healing as a spectrum is recognizing that one’s felt sense is always in flux. Integration is always in flux, and healing can become recognizing that at any given point in time, one’s felt sense simply relates to one’s position, if you will, on the spectrum of health and wellbeing.

While this image is fairly linear in nature, it is also possible to see healing as a spiral in which this line of health and wellbeing circles up continually into ever higher planes. Both horizontally and vertically there is no destination and no permanence. This brings a whole new perspective and possibility into the mix. For example, in the linear spectrum model, there might be the experience of frequently falling back into old patterns or states of being. Sometimes this might be accompanied by thoughts or feelings of frustration, and even a sense of personal failure for repeating something that we might have thought had been completed or finished somehow. However, unlike this metaphor of moving back and forth, one might consider that there is, actually, over time a progression upwards as one heals; a progression of consciousness. Therefore, due to its circular nature, one may indeed come back around to what feels like a repeat of a previous experience (e.g., having flashbacks as a result of trauma), but what is actually happening is that one is revisiting the experience at a different level of consciousness, and there is something new to be seen, to be learned, to be experienced, to be healed. In this model, we reorient ourselves towards what appear to be patterns and see them anew as opportunities to bring fresh insights or deeper release into an area that we have been before but at a different level of consciousness, at a different “stage” of the healing journey. When this “echo” happens, it is an echo that continues upwards over the passage of time, and each time we experience it – anger, fear, depression, hyper-vigilance – we are not in the same place as we were before, and have a new opportunity for self-knowledge, self-discovery, and self-realization. Healing as a spiral becomes an exciting journey of healing, certainly challenging, but oriented towards one’s growth and transformation.

One additional possibility in this idea of the spectrum is to see the healing spectrum as neither line nor spiral but as a sphere. In the sphere model, what happens as we grow and transform – what happens as we heal – is an expansion in all directions. We expand up, down, left right, inward, outward, with no limits. As the sphere expands, it contains more possibilities. This might mean that we gain the capacity for even greater feeling than before. If we gain greater capacity, it could mean that when we experience any feelings, any emotions, we may experience them even more intensely than before, not less. It might mean that we gain the capacity to tolerate even greater depression, while also gaining greater capacity to feel joy and bliss. In general, it might mean that life itself increases in its felt intensity.

Now how does this relate to healing, especially if one of the goals of trauma healing seems to be to reduce or eliminate symptoms? I will admit that this one is tough. Does the sphere model imply that my flashbacks might become even worse, that trauma symptoms such as anxiety and depression might intensify or become even more disruptive? In the healing-as-expanding-sphere, I imagine that there are changes to symptoms as one heals and releases stuck and embodied energy patterns, and that there is an increased, expanded capacity to be with greater and greater amounts of energy. Thus, if depression or anxiety or fear or happiness or joy or pleasure are experienced in expanded states, then these experiences might be even more intense than they were prior to the expansion, when the “sphere” was smaller. In this regard, then, healing becomes expanding one’s tolerance, one’s ability to be with and contain all of it.

However – another way to think of this is that when one expands and has more space to hold greater intensity, future events that are difficult could be conceived as being more difficult within or for a smaller sphere, so to speak; but “in” or “as” a larger sphere, the impact is diminished and perhaps becomes less disruptive and less prone to cause dis-ease. Thus, healing within this model both allows for experiences of greater intensity while also reducing the disruptive influences of events that may have been more challenging at a previous time.

I want to offer one more idea related to the healing-as-sphere thread: that of healing as ananda. Ananda is a Sanskrit word that is often translated as “bliss,” and is part of the three-fold description of the qualities of Brahman within yogic literature, satcitananda (Being, Consciousness, Bliss). The idea is that the Absolute (Brahman) is Pure Being, Pure Consciousness, and Pure Bliss, as well as the idea that the Absolute experiences the Bliss of both Being and Consciousness. The conception of this state of the Absolute is that of a kind of eternal rapture, a cosmic pleasure of Being “the” Absolute in all manifest and unmanifest things. However, in the conception of Brahman as the Absolute, because Brahman is not just in all things, but is all things, then that includes the full range of possibilities, including experiences such as trauma (both events and symptoms). How is this “bliss?”

Many writers and teachers within various yogic lineages talk about Bliss as the ability to tolerate and withstand extreme intensity of sensation and experience (Banerji, 2016). In other words, thinking of Bliss as pure physical pleasure (e.g., a never-ending physical zenith of felt existence) errors because it literally leaves out the flip side of anything conceived as “pleasurable.” It leaves out half of all possible existence (recognizing that this dichotomy is, perhaps, an error in itself). Ananda then becomes the full spectrum, the full spiral, and the full sphere. There is nowhere along the linear spectrum where ananda does not live. There is nowhere on the upward spiral that does not contain ananda. The expansion of the sphere is the expansion of ananda, it is the ever-growing ability to hold, taste, touch, feel everything. This is the pure Bliss, the inclusion of everything and the rejection of nothing.

In this line of possibility then, some aspects of healing get flipped on their head – symptoms become doorways to bliss, pathways for experiences of incredibly intense sensation. It embraces both complete madness and full lucidity. They are both experiences of bliss, and as we will explore more fully in the thread on Hatha yoga, for some, these things exist in an exchange of mutual benefit. It is the idea of greater pain and greater pleasure, that the degree to which one experiences intensity in one direction provides a greater expansion of intensity in the other. This works in both (and all) directions. Going further “down” simultaneously expands the distance one can go “up.” And, going further up deepens the distance to which one can travel down. Greater love can mean greater pain. Greater difficulty can mean greater triumph. Greater depression can open a door to greater joy.

When it comes to healing trauma, this particular path – healing as ananda – would likely be a path one might happen upon later in one’s journey of healing and recovery. Offering the idea to a survivor in the midst of their crisis or right after a horrendous event feels cruel and poorly timed. In times of immediate aftermath or during challenges with symptoms, I would argue that it would be inappropriate to suggest that one should aim for embracing everything that is happening. However, it is possible for some that as their healing journey unfolds, they may naturally experience a sense of expansion, including experiences of greater intensity in both “directions.” The healing as sphere and healing as ananda models may then be of value in offering a conception of what might be happening, and what might be available and possible for someone as they continue healing.

Part XII continues this series, exploring healing through Hatha yoga, and the concept and practice of “binding” and “unbinding.”

REFERENCES FOR THIS SERIES

Aurobindo, Sri. (1990). The Synthesis of Yoga. Lotus Press.

Badenoch, B. (2018). The Heart of Trauma (First edition ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

Banerji, D. (2016). Seven quartets of becoming (Second impression ed.). Nalanda International.

Blackstone, J. (2018). Trauma and the unbound body. Sounds True.

Damasio, A. R. (2019). The strange order of things : life, feeling, and the making of cultures (First Vintage Books edition, February 2019. ed.). Vintage Books.

Freud, S. (2010). Civilization and Its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company.

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery. Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

Larson, G. J. (1969). Classical Sāṃkhya (1 ed. ed.). Motilal Banarsidass.

Levine, P. A., & Frederick, A. (1997). Waking the tiger : healing trauma : the innate capacity to transform overwhelming experiences. North Atlantic Books.

Levine, P. A., & Kline, M. (2008). Trauma-proofing your kids : a parents’ guide for instilling confidence, joy and resilience. North Atlantic Books.

McLaren, K. (2010). The language of emotions. Sounds True.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Heal. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heal

Miller, A. (1997). The drama of the gifted child : the search for the true self, revised edition. Basic Books.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory : neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation (1st ed. ed.). W.W. Norton.

Porges, S. W. (2017). The pocket guide to polyvagal theory : the transformative power of feeling safe (First edition. ed.). W. W Norton & Company.

Siegel, D. J. 1. (2012). Pocket guide to interpersonal neurobiology : an integrative handbook of the mind (First edition. ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

Siegel, D. J. 1. (2018). Aware : the science and practice of Presence, the groundbreaking meditation practice. TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Solomon, M. F., & Siegel, D. J. 1. (2003). Healing trauma : attachment, mind, body, and brain (1st ed. ed.). W.W. Norton.

Van der Kolk, Bessel A. 1943-. (2015). The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.