15. Christine Wushke and Lisa Elliot - Nervous System Resources During Pandemic Times

In this talk we met with Christine and Lisa to discuss and share
some trauma-informed and body-oriented nervous system resources
during the COVID 19 pandemic. This talk was recorded during the
beginning of the pandemic in April, but still feels pertinent in
it’s launch on air in October.


Some of the topics covered:


- The importance of orienting towards resources during
challenging times.


- From hyper-productivity to stop, and how much that reveals our
cultural rushing.


- Sheltering at home as a holding container.


- Seeing how society is revealing where people are in terms of
nervous system states: fight, flight, freeze and appease.


- The raising of responses to these events: conspiracy theories,
feelings of being at loss, overwhelm, not knowing how to deal
with this “invisible” emergency.


- What is it to function in a world that doesn’t support a
healthy nervous system? The body is having a “neuroceptive”
response and the way back to regulation is in the body.


- Polyvagal Theory and the difference in the state adaptations
across cultures.


- Epigenetics, Family Systems and Stress. Stress, trauma and the
body, Saj Razvi YouTube video.


- Mobilization before safety and connection. What are we adapting
to in the environment? I’m not messed up, I have a nervous
system.


- The loss of pleasure during trauma, allowing tuning into
savoring and directing the attention back to pleasure sensations.
The Hakomi Method and self-soothing gestures to bring more
awareness of pleasure.


- Ways in which people attempt self-regulation and functionality
via external resources that are substitute forms of resources
that are destructive. The concept of “vitality” as a resource
that arises from within vs resources that are external.
Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma:
Lifting the Burdens of the Past 1st Edition, by Sharon
Stanley


- The Threshold Theory of Change, by Lisa Elliot. The
reductionist idea of our culture, in terms of finding the
reductionist “one” solution. Accessing greater health from a
social justice response.


- The midbrain, effort and control area.


- Orienting to the small moments of safety, regulation and
pleasure. The small steps towards pleasure and regulation. One
step at the time, one dish at the time, one breath at the time.


- Tracking and getting to know your own system. What’s your
vitality enjoy?


- Orienting to safety and threat through vision. Doing a task
until completion, and avoiding chronic stress. The concept of
simultaneous visual awareness via panoramic vision. Z-Health
Neurofundamentals free of charge


Other Resources:


- Finding the gravel at the bottom of the river to stop being
swept away.


- Parts of the self, a part of you experiencing something, and me
as the observer and care taker of this part. Turning kindness and
compassion towards ourselves. My body and mind have done so much
to keep me safe. Understanding the intelligence of the nervous
system responses.


- Start small, build up from there. Locate one part of your body
that feels ok.


- Using a therapy ball or lacrosse ball to map (feel) places of
the body that feel pleasant, using language that feels inviting.


- Accumulate those things you have access to; postive self
regulating inputs, like a basket of resources with written
things, objects. Ekeko god (Peru-Bolivia) as an example.


- The crucial role of compassion in this connection with
resources. Turning attention with compasion.


CHRISTINE WUSHKE


Christine Wushke is a long time Yoga Teacher,
Meditation Instructor, Myofascial Release Therapist, and
Certified Hakomi Practitioner, Christine decided to merge her
specialties, she began to incorporate the principles of
Myofascial Release, trauma awareness and mindfulness into all her
yoga classes and, noticing the amazing results and effectiveness,
she designed her own system of Myofascial Yoga.


Christine Wushke is also the author of Freedom is Your Nature: A
Practical Guide to Transformation and creator of the “Easy Yoga
for Beginners” DVD.  For more information of Christine
please check out her website at freelyhuman.com 


Lisa Elliott comes to this conversation as the
founder of the Vagus Study Group, a large, online collaborative
learning project with a mission of exploring the embodiment of
experience via diverse ways of knowing.  Her work and that
of the study group navigates between the methods of western
science, philosophy, activism, art, and the transformative
interconnectedness found in many spiritual orientations. 
Lisa is a counselor-in-training at Antioch University Seattle,
completing a rich internship with Dr. Sharon Stanley of Somatic
Transformation before beginning private practice in December of
2020.


Lisa comes to counseling as a returning student from earlier
careers in photography, community organizing, arts non-profit
management, construction project management, and aerial
acrobatics performance and coaching. Her work with her own
life-long chronic illness has led to a holistic and eco-systemic
philosophy of healing and personal growth, and to a deep study of
our embodiment of stress, trauma, and factors of resilience.


Email us your reflections, comments and questions at
embodimenttime@gmail.com