Not too long ago, in the clinic. I heard “It feels heavy here”, whilst pointing to their heart.
I had asked “Where in your body do you feel it”. After hearing the response, a memory came to me from that long period in my life where feeling that weight, heavy as metal, in my heart, and feeling the pressure and lack of air, was the norm.
I remembered that I lived with it for so long, giving it the least importance, I would alleviate it with deep breaths, in an attempt to against the current of what my body was saying to me.
The session continued and we figured out what had been the key moment. The issue was one of her children, like always, what always happens with this child is only the tip of a huge iceberg. Children look at what their parents’ silence, parents silence without knowing they are doing so. We all swim in pools of silence, parents and children, the parents learned this form of negotiation from their own parents, and it’s a way of survival. It’s not bad, by any means, it was an effective survival system for what happened that couldn’t be solved physiologically. This creates a heavy load for the nervous system, which has not been liberated, and in turn, this has consequences at many levels.
Returning to the session, I listened to what she told me. I listened carefully to what was not being said with words but was reaching me anyway. I asked the appropriate questions and something came to light, the Second World War. She explained to me that “nothing happened” because they “only” lived in an occupied town, and nobody in the family died. Well, her father was a prisoner but in the end they didn’t shoot him. “All fine”, that’s the phrasing she used, that’s what she offered me.
My biological vehicle of information (the body) was increasing in movement, I was following the sensations, silenced by the family with “all good”, in my own body resonating with hers.
Always present sadness, inability to enjoy the present moment because of constant internal contradictions and ambiguity, somatic symptoms, irrational anger, excessive emotion, tend to be the tip of the iceberg, the tip of that which is not seen.
I regulated with her, gave space for another level. Emotions, sensations, the somatic began to move across her body too. We co-regulated together.
Finally, she asked “how is it that you hear all of this and still have a smile on your face?”
For me it’s simple, to look at the wound, for what you cannot see, is to look for where the light comes in, and that is what makes me smile, that is the answer.
This conversation wouldn’t be of interest if it weren’t because it takes us to an essential point; the care for all the people that work in the field of helping others, whether that be health care, attorneys, social workers, firemen, therapists, psychologists…the list is huge. In all of these cases, we work with what has been left frozen in the nervous system of the people we deal with, and we don’t always have the tools, or knowledge that can help us manage it. If you add to that, that we usually do this work because we ourselves are working through what we have neglected in our own family system, we get to the big topic, the unfinished business, that isn’t taught in trainings… the reprocessing of trauma.
We need to put words to what we live every day in our jobs, we are in contact with people who are disorientated, who don’t understand things that are written and well explained, with humans who’s overwhelmed nervous systems collide with ours. We lose patience, although we don’t want to. Something takes over our will, something which we have no control over. We don’t understand each other, we don’t understand our reactions, nor those of others. We have tried everything, but nothing works. Nothing is how it should be and we run on to the next thing without working through it.
Running is escaping, escaping from what? From all that you cannot see, and all that we turn away from. I’m telling you, that’s exactly what our clients bring to us, those with which we heal as one, it’s also what occurs in intimate relationships.
The road to resolution requires us to keep educating ourselves, it requires therapy and lots of exposure.
To all those who come to the clinic, to the groups and workshops (in-person and online), I thank you. We swim in the same pool and we love the difficult, we love the difficult people, and we exit the pools of silence and blindness, with renewed strength. The path has to be walked, and it’s done best without letting go of each other. Speaking is not enough, it’s time to dig to the deep layers, where the body stores and keeps track of things that are not seen.
An inward adventure, in the company of those who hold space for us to discover our ability of natural self-regulation, to the discovery of what cannot be seen.
Rocío Palacios
Family Constellations · Meetings · Online lessons · Seminarios · Sessions · Silence trips. At your service to help you find your alignment with the Source, following Love as your only Guide.
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www.rociopalacios.es