One way to begin healing developmental trauma is to learn about what the founder of Polyvagal Theory Stephen Porges termed "neuroception."
Why might a hypersensitive empath lack empathy and sensitivity? Well, think about it. If you're an emotional sponge who picks up on other people's feelings without clear, solid psychic boundaries that protect your energy field from the energy field of others, an angry, grieving, terrified, disappointed,
It occurred to me as we were making our mandalas- This is how I operate my life.
What's next is the guiding principle of how I navigate uncertainty, whether we're talking about a book writing project, an activist idea, or a challenging relationship.
It sounds weird to say that trauma is hot right now, but it doesn't take much to recognize that after a year of personal and collective trauma, conversations about healing trauma are everywhere. For example, I'm delighted that Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry, MD have published their book about developmental trauma- What Happened To You? and Gabor Mate collaborated with the Science & Non-Duality community to release their documentary The Wisdom of Trauma.
Last week, I had the great pleasure of co-teaching with IFS founder and trauma therapist Dick Schwartz, PhD in both our Healing With The Muse community and in our Rebirth 2021 class.
So what happens if people don't get the second developmental need (attunement) met? First, let's define attunement.
Thanks to Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal Theory, we now know so much more about what happens in the body, in the autonomic nervous system, in the immune system, in the presence of chronic inflammation, and in end organs affected by chronic sympathetic nervous system hyper-arousal and/or chronic dorsal vagal hypo-arousal. This nervous system dysregulation can lead not only to practically every mental health diagnosis in the DSM-V, but also to a host of medical conditions, like:
Heller and LaPierre assert that children have five core developmental needs- for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and a healthy connection between love and sexuality, which, when met, give us core capacities essential to our wellbeing.