Do you talk or act contrary to what you really feel or believe?
Do you find yourself changing per social environment, only to leave that interaction feeling sunken?
Do you feel both unbothered by, and simultaneously caught up in others opinions/impressions/expectations of you?
That ‘sense of self-betrayal’ when you realise you abandoned yourself, again. You know the feeling?
What’s going on here?
In his book, The Body Keeps the Score, Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk shares research by his colleague Ruth Lanius, MD. pHD, about, what he calls, 'the self-sensing' areas of the brain.
Bessel refers to these areas of the brain as ‘The Mohawk of self-awareness’. This zone begins above our eyes, through the centre of the brain to the very back of the brain.
To read more on this, get your hands on the book.
One part of Ruth’s research involved comparing brain scans of people with early childhood trauma (complex PTSD/C-PTSD) with brain scans of those with less adverse upbringings.
Those with C-PTSD showed a significant decrease in activation in this ‘Mohawk’ area of the brain — in these self-sensing areas.
The areas (neural pathways) involved in making connections, processing emotions, advocating for oneself, identify one’s personal needs, identity and preferences aren't as active in the brain of someone with C-PTSD.
For example, Bessel explains the orbital prefrontal cortex (at the front of the brain, above your eyebrows) assists with decision making and and executive functioning. It’s the part of the brain that draws on prior experiences to navigate current situations. This is the CEO area. It's logical and reliant on logic.
A little further back in the brain is the Insula. The insula registers information from your environment and relays it to your brain to respond accordingly.
The ability to interocept — that is, to sense what it is you feel within — is enabled by all of these areas of the brain working together, using feedback from the outside world to map and develop the inner world, using your bodily responses to make determinations of how your energy works in different spaces (differentiating the sense of self).
Now imagine these two regions of the brain, not able to transmit, only providing a percentage of the data you need to assess a situation.
“Trauma results in a fundamental reorganisation of the way the mind and brain manages perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think,” says Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk.
This implication of inactivity in these areas has cascading effects, connecting to every other part of our biochemistry.
Our brains are constantly in a state of adaptation to the environment around us, and your subconscious is always working to protect you. Naturally it would adapt to ensure survival. If that means minimising a sensitivity to certain cues, or stuffing down your needs because they get met with backlash — you did what you had to do.
Sometimes though, these mechanisms expire in usefulness (cue: montage of repetitive patterns identifying the issue).
There are lots of ways it can manifest, and many different layers per individual. There's also multiple patterns playing out at once, and the borders are not always clear.
Bessel says…
“If you cannot tolerate what you know, or feel what you feel, the only option is denial and dissociation.”
He also says…
“The solution requires finding ways to help people alter the inner sensory landscape of the body.”
“Modulations of environmental or cognitive stimuli…”
As long as the body is still generating new cells (which you will continue to do until your last breath), your brain is adaptive and there is an ability to influence and repair these patterns.
It’s somewhat counter-intuitive to believe that experiences in life that aren’t logical or sensical could be resolved by linear means.
In hypnosis we work directly with the emotional brain (the limbic brain) using the language it understands — imagery, sensation, symbols, sound and intuition.
Tapping into the limbic brain can help make connections the rational mind was never involved in, and give that energy the recognition it seeks.
Inspired by the Mohawk, stay tuned for a new imaging hypnosis where we induce the rest and recovery state and image this ‘Mohawk’ area of the brain. It's a short visualisation where we oxygenate these areas of the brain, envision and allow new connections and witness glimpses of the benefits.
The experience is multifold — intended to provide the body with time and space to rest and release, while easefully allowing change to occur, feeling into the essence of ideal conditions and making new neural connections in the direction of those conditions, all while receiving messages from your subconscious.
🎧 If you’re interested in receiving this hypnosis recording when it’s released, follow this link.
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