Unpacking 'the body keeps the score'

I was recommended Bessel Van Der Kolk's book by an influential person in my life. Below is my notes and understanding of around 3/4 of the book.

Trauma is often conceived as an intense extremity such as growing up in a wartorn country. Reading the book has helped me understand that everyone has some form of trauma. Now I don't mean to do a disservice to those who have gone or are going through the darkest of times. We can all learn from everything and anything. Milder forms of 'trauma' such as strict or harsh parents with no love affirmations can all affect people on a long term basis. This is done through recalibrating the brain through learnt experience and reactions. Bessel talks often about the brain's alarm system becoming faulty.

Trauma that has been unresolved whether it's conscious or unconscious, makes us hypervigilant if it resurfaces in whatever way. Bessel explains this hypervigilance is not from commonly assumed factors such as a lack of willpower, but from changes in the brain. Interestingly, traumatised people live in the past. To some people, it may look as if they are choosing to live in the past or they are choosing not to help themselves. Some common comments I can think of that can be understood widely are, "why do you keep going back to that person?" or "you know it's bad so why do you do it." Bessel identifies that these people identities and sense of self, no matter how destructive, lies in the past. This sense of self, although a false and very harmful sense of security, is all they have to feel 'agency'/autonomy. We can all admit that we cling to what is familiar. Our greatest forms of sufferings are the lies we tell ourselves. Bessel is right, we don't want to know the amount of people abused by the second, the animals that are mistreated etc.

I find this book helpful for me to understand how a large group of people within our society function. It helps carve empathy and patience amidst my path on stoicism. Many people want to gain happiness, autonomy, purpose and direction, as we all deserve, but can't due to deeply rooted experiences in the past. This book helps me understand the way they function, the way I function too and my own past experiences that have shaped me to be who I am. It's helped me understand that there are many, many parts of myself who is stuck and gripped by my own childhood as I have written in my posts prior to this reading.

Trauma takes away one's trust in others and themselves, even if you want to. Trauma makes us do things that our real, pure self (I believe our soul) wouldn't do. To alleviate trauma and its pains, we do regrettable things. Bessel says trauma and shame are strongly linked. We may be shameful of the things we do to alleviate our pain. As Bessel says, we are especially shamed if there is a strong link between the way we alleviate the pain and the responsibility that we have are in conflict.

Trying to heal from trauma is difficult as numbness, a common byproduct of deep trauma, strongly contrasts with the moments we feel alive. Often the times a traumatised person feels alive are unhealthy as it is harder to risk the time and effort to experiment new solutions. Staying in the same familiarity, fear and destructivity is understandably easier. Bessel gives examples:

• Revisiting the traumatic memory makes you feel something, so you revisit it, consciously or unconsciously. This may also be the bleakly hopeful aporia within people that by revisiting the memory over and over, there will magically be a way out

• intensive, dangerous and thrilling environments like the street life, fighting, doing substances, speeding. This may also be due to the nature of these 'activities' being similar to the environment of the traumatic event itself. We all stick to familiarity and comfort by nature.

• Connecting with similar minded people to feel understood and a sense of security within a group. I see this a lot growing up, "FTS/FTP", rave culture, drill culture, martial arts cultures. Bessel says traumatised people when in a similar minded reference group, ironically makes their world more divided as those "who don't get it" will be excluded or unwelcome. I found it interesting that Bessel found that spouses, coworkers or children don't get the same level of trust by traumatised people compared to the people they believe are also traumatised. I can understand Bessel's comment about how people of trauma may be numb/indifferent to objectively safer environments like kids birthday parties or family dinners.

By around this point, I began to think about the people I knew well who seemed to not have any trauma. I recall in my travels in Japan, where I met someone who claimed to never have had any 'really bad experiences'. This makes me appreciate that amidst the darkness, it is the very darkness that helps us understand the value and the identification of light. Life is a balancing act.

'The Body Keeps The Score' because our bodies register threats but the conscious mind goes on as if nothing happened. This is a habit and a result of the mind learning to ignore the messages from the emotional brain. However, the alarm signals don't stop, the stress hormone keeps signaling and we may feel tense, shortness of breath etc. I find this interesting because everyone can take something away from Bessel's writings. As a martial artist and a curious person of life, I can be more mindful as to my learnt habits on a micro basis and do something about it. For many people, the trauma was/is too much to act upon with a long term positive orientation. They just want to feel 'okay' and often focus on suppressing this inner chaos. Bessel says this is at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their day to day lives and moments; a state of immobilisation.

From what I've read and my understanding, I'd summarise the solutions presented in the book (only read 3/4 ^ ) as follows:

Physical:

• Bessel says physical experiences help people restore "a visceral sense of control". As a martial artist, I can definitely appreciate this. It doesn't matter to what capacity you do it, as long as there are positive results. Through martial arts and the many people I've taught, I can see how people often start extremely tense and frozen in reaction. Through practice, time and commitment, they begin to unlearn this and begin appreciating they have the autonomy within. Moving and defending themselves is obviously but at great difficulty to do, better than freezing up. Through mastery, we can begin to apply this to our own lives as everything is a microcosm of life.

• "Angry people live in angry bodies". I believe what Bessel says is accurate. Indeed, physical awareness is the first step rather than mental awareness. Becoming familiar with your body through exercise helps you become more self-aware and in time, more comfortable with what you are doing. This will in turn, help with mental awareness. As Joe Rogan says, through intense exercise, much of your problems in the mind will melt away.

• Furthering the mind body connection, Bessel recommends yoga. Effective breathing and moving the body together in duality focuses your mind. Getting autonomy in exercise can help gain/find confidence in other aspects of your life.

• Rhythm: I found this interesting. Bessel explores the rhythmic interaction between people such as passing a ball or dancing to music helpful to gaining 'agency' and a sense of control. As a martial artist, I can definitely appreciate how amongst higher level fighting, any disruption to the opponent's rhythm is often what secures domination/victory.

Talking:

• Communicating the experiences and ourselves in general is so underrated or done poorly. Bessel talks about the importance of feeling safe above anything during communication. Feelings of safety and having 'agency' (control over your own life) work synergistically to help us understand the first step, to know what we are feeling. Only then, can we begin to question WHY we feel that way. Many people of trauma, as Bessel says, cannot explain how they feel because they cannot identify what they are feeling. What they feel and what they understand are often quite the opposite. Without communication with themselves and this naturally leads to a lack of communication with others, people of trauma register emotions as a physical problem rather than important signals. I see this often in some people who try to be 'tough', they take a blanket approach to denying all emotions as irrelevant/hindrance. It's a balance. Communication and understanding is to bring back structure and something to fall back onto when triggers arise.

Practicing the now

• This is similar to my previous readings of Tolle. Simplify our needs, most of what are truly need are so basic, yet as humans we overcomplicate so much, obscuring what truly matters. This affects our emotions deeply and strays us further from healing. Ultimately, to leave the trauma of the past in the past, and that it is not affecting the present.

Medication

• I'm by no means anything close to a qualified psychologist so I won't elaborate much on this. Bessel talks about the benefits of antidepressants but stresses that current trends show more medication over therapy/talking/physiology. With the rise of mental health and consumerism, it is important to recognise that medication can mask the pain but may prevent people from drawing attention to deeper underlying issues.

P.S. I like this quote,"We feel like ourselves when our rational and emotional brain are in balance"

P.P.S. I hope one day I can be satisfied with my patience and focus to read through more unfamiliar jargon. I still have tendencies to skim read which I would draw back to my childhood upbringing of having to get the job done quickly and accurately; something I'm working on.