The Connection of Self-Compassion and Trauma Healing – Look for the Parallels

Posted on March 30, 2023 by Vania

I like finding patterns in things. I think i much prefer knitting a simple pattern to a complicated puzzle. I like collecting the same shells at a time, and all my flowers need to planted just so. I need patterns – the consistency, the ease, and the fulfilled expectation. I don’t think it’s because i need order, or that it’s a trauma response. I think it’s more that my body finds pleasure and peace in it.

So i couldn’t help but notice the pattern at play around the 3 Pillars of Self-Compassion that are mirrored with the 3 main stages of trauma healing work. Am i grabbing at straws? Maybe. But it still works. Let me explain:

Judith Herman introduced us to the phased model for trauma resolution work in her book Trauma and Recovery. The number of stages (usually between 3-5) vary based on the therapy modality and therapist. The three stages in a very basic summary are 1) Stabilization and Establishing a sense of Safety; 2) Reprocessing the Trauma and 3) Integration and Reconnection.

“Transformation doesn’t happen in a linear way, at least not one we can always track. It happens in cycles, convergences, explosions. If we release the framework of failure, we can realize that we are in iterative cycles, and we can keep asking ourselves — how do I learn from this?” adreinne maree brown

The stages are less steps in a linear order and more a dance of back and forth pattern to see what is needed and repeat. When we build our capacity, and don’t feel dysregulated by new events, we have healed old trauma. This is what self-regulation and knowing your window of tolerance or capacity is.

The healing journey as similar to climbing a mountain. It’s not that different from the hero’s journey concept from Joseph Campbell. It takes time, perseverance, and effort. It also takes a commitment to keep going, even when also needing to pause and rest, so that we feel resourced so that we can keep going. The heroic part is not experiencing and surviving the trauma itself, but rather going back in time and healing it, so that we come out of the experience having integrated all our parts.

Staci Haines shares that we know we are healed after trauma when we have a felt sense of safety, belonging and dignity. This is also very similar to accomplishing a hero’s journey.

The book Journey Through Trauma shares a more in-depth 5-phase cycle of healing repeated trauma. It’s by Gretchen Schmelzer and it’s one of my favourite books on this topic. It looks to stabilization and preparation first in a trauma-informed way to help people build their resources. This is an act of kindness.

Self-Kindness is Stage One: Stabilization
Stage One of trauma therapy is about learning new resources to help stabilize you before you embark on the inner and deeper work. It’s what is necessary to establish trust in our body and from our various parts. This kindness equals safety and stability because we learn emotion regulation resources that help us get to safety. We also learn more about the body and how to attune to its response. This is the time we build awareness about what resources work for us.

This might sound more akin to mindfulness – but in order to do something mindfully, we need first to understand what works for us. We also need to treat our SELF like a friend, to give our self-compassion. So, the first step is to know what are some kind acts of self-compassion.

We need to figure out what you want moving forward because this builds capacity for safety and agency. It is about going beyond meeting our foundational basic needs to decrease stress in body (sleep, nutrition, safe home, financial security) to build capacity. Ultimately, this helps us learn how to manage a bigger range of emotions.

This relates to stage one of healing because it is the preparation stage is entirely about attending to safety – building necessary skills and collecting resources both external and internal ones. It’s also about establishing meaningful activities to help balance the work of healing with the experience of joy.

Establishing trust is one of the first tasks of trauma therapy, both internally and also with someone else. If the trauma we are healing from is relational, a breech in connection and attachment needs to be repaired. Unless it does, it continues to get in the way of a felt sense of safety as it relates to connection.

Mindfulness and Reprocessing
This stage needs to be embodied to be transformed. We need to grieve what happened and also what didn’t get to happen because the trauma experience got in the way. We can’t think our way through it, only feel. The story of trauma doesn’t get stored just in our brain and memory processing centre, but also our body. It’s in our bones, our fascia, and hormones. The body has built-in systems to help us feel more present and scan for joy, not just threat. The Reticular Activating System is a set of neurons in the brain, used to bring on a glimmer moment. It helps to intentionally look for something good or soothing. This system is responsible for our wakefulness, our ability to focus, our fight-flight response, and how we ultimately perceive the world.

Mindfulness is recognizing what i need in a given moment and acting upon it. It is about listening to myself (interoception) and trusting it. It is about healing the parts that felt ignored and minimized for so long. You know the ones, they might say “i don’t want to go out tonight because it’s too much for me” or “I think i need to ask for a friend to come home with me to help me feel safe after the bar.”

The impact of trauma varies, and one way to assess the impact is to think of the ABC of trauma – the affect, behaviour, and cognition attached to it). Some common emotional responses are shame, sadness, fear, hopelessness and grief. We then may withdraw or avoid others and life generally, isolate ourselves or self-harm. We carry limited beliefs about ourself and have a negative view of possible healing. Mindfulness helps us start to notice what are our own ABCs and how they have become our preferred story, even whilst limiting us.

This middle stage is about helping folks start to track their symptoms and have a more mindful attunement and understanding of why they’re nervous system does what it does. These resources and examples expand our Window of Tolerance and help us remember and grieve, as well as piece the together story. This is key as it this means going back and re-authoring a hard story; speak them outloud in a safe new environment, and can be just a part of the story; we heal the part that may be stuck or stored. In THIS artcile, Staci Haine shares some helpful strategies to do just this. She offers individual practices to help build an embodied sense of resilience as well as more community-based ways to stay connected. Both are key and necessary to help heal trauma.

“Clients experience grief after every therapeutic gain. Grief is the Bridge between past, present and future.”~Onno van der Hart

Integration and Common Humanity
The last stage is about helping folks integrate all their parts into one as opposed to having a fragmented parts. It’s both a common humanity of an internal family system as well as being able to re-emerge after trauma and being part of community in right relationship. Group work is really great here as is volunteering as it highlights that stage of post traumatic growth.

Common Humanity is starting to come out of our trauma cave to see our full self, and being able to see other’s stories as similar. It is also a great complement to the stage of post-traumatic growth. Some examples of it are narrative justice writing groups, taking self-defense or wen-do classes, building new relationships. We have a new self-identity and integrated the trauma part into it. The trauma experience happened TO you so doesn’t get to define you. Who are you after trauma matters. This is where we create new healthy relationships and have more access to dreams and capacity

Reconnection and future possible templates with hope and joy, safety and connection happen in this stage. That’s why i wish clients stayed the course until this phase. Many clients stop after stage 2 because they feel better generally. It’s not unlike we we stop taking the prescribed medication prematurely.

One of the goals of trauma resolution work and integration is to change our affect. Looking for joy and being present is a way to move past trauma and find new life in our journey now. We need to bring in a sense of hope and resilience, as well as less fear. As social creatures, we seek support and thrive with connection. When we have a more attuned self-concept, we can shift from a negative self-image and see our worth more fully; we move from a limiting belief like “it was my fault” to “I am okay and what happened to me is not my doing.”

We are more than the trauma that happens to us.

We are the heroine in our own story.

Of course, as humans in a messy and imperfect world, we will still experience new trauma. So the work is to make sure we have resources that work so we can tend to our woundedness.

Let me take it a step further and also notice the connection between 3 types of self – physical, emotional and spiritual and how they tie in to mind body soul, or even the triple goddess. Or maybe i should wait for another post…but you see the parallels here too, right?

My Daughter is a Fawn

Posted on July 21, 2021 by Vania

Last year, on one of my escapes from the city during the pandemic, i came across a baby deer. It was truly a magnificent sight. We locked eyes for several minutes. I tracked its posture and racing heart. She stayed perfectly still, trying to blend into the forest floor she had been napping in. She looked so much like the depiction of Bambi that i thought i was making her up.

As someone who has been immersed in trauma therapy and continues to train in the area of somatic therapy, using our animal friends as reference is commonplace in therapy trainings. I have watched several videos of various animals following their survival instincts, as a lesson to see how humans also react to stress or fear-based moments in a similar way.

Most of us have heard of the concept of “Fight or Flight”. It is something that i have written about here several times. This past year, even more of us have heard of Freeze and maybe even Fawning. Well, this actual fawn did not fawn to me, or presumably its mama that was most likely close by. She froze, or rather feigned dead. She stayed perfectly still for several moments, tracking me with her eyes, nose, ears and surely a 6th sense. When she saw me whisper to my partner (who was able to witness this beautiful sight and therefore vouch for the authenticity of my story), she took that moment to Flee. Maybe she ran to her mama, but i could see no other 4 legged creature nearby.

We can learn a lot from our animal friends. In truth, we are not that different from them.

Take my daughter for instance. She has perfected the art of a good compliment. I’m not exactly sure where she learned this as she’s only 9. She will do it to just about anyone. I think it’s a wonderful trait as it softens people and she sees the humanity in them. Even today, on our first adventure to the world of shopping after a long term lockdown, she complimented the cashier on her shirt. It was a cool shirt – a classic Empire Strikes Back retro tee. It led to a long chat about our favourite Star Wars characters and why. My daughter knows how to break the ice. She’s social and extroverted for sure. She also is good at connecting with others. This shopping trip was surely in the area of a safe and relaxed outing, so she was happy and relaxed – in a Ventral Vagal Part of her Nervous System. But she does this too when in conflict with her family – this is where the fawning comes in.

The other day, we got into a conflict over doing a chore that i asked her to do several times. This is a pretty typical argument, and yet i was not as regulated as i’d like to admit (i’m a human first, mom second, and then therapist after all). She picked up on this – co-regulation and neuroception goes both ways. So, she complimented me on my 15-year old bathing suit that i was wearing at the time. To be fair, i love it too and it is a gem. But, i knew she was doing it to stay on my good side, and to feel safe. My partner called it manipulative, but i now see it as Fawning. As a younger child, she used to do it more physically, with running to us for cuddles, or being close. Now, as a very articulate and socially aware young human, she has a deeper sense of co-regulation and helping clear the air. This is where appeasing the other person comes in.

To be clear, my daughter lives in a safe and loving home, with parents who are present and attunement, albeit re-parenting their own wounded parts (some that were activated during the pandemic). Her instinct to appease is not because she is in harm’s way, but rather how her body responds to stress she takes in from conflict. It is in her DNA and Nervous System level where the instinct comes. In other words, it’s not her, but her nervous system responding for her. All creatures, humans included, have this instinct to survive under duress be it fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

For the record, my son is a Fighter and I’m a former Freezer. Plus my daughter also plays a role in starting a lot of fights. There’s an inner fighter in her too. As a feminist mom, a part of me is relieved. But that’s a story for another time.

In some children, this instinct is definitely linked to a stronger need to survive.

In childhood, where most of these survival instincts start to form, children who fawn learn to put their own needs and feelings aside as it feels safer to appease the other person. For anyone who grew up in an abusive home environment, fawning is used as a powerful safety strategy and survival skill. Children learn quickly that saying ‘yes’ is safer than saying ‘no’, even if it goes against their own wishes. Self-sacrifice and people-pleasing becomes the default to stay safe, even when there is violence present. Repressing their own needs becomes an adaptive strategy to de-escalate any further potential danger.

When it’s used time and time again to diffuse a conflict, the body stores this default and people-pleasing becomes a maladaptive coping strategy. As adults, our body remembers these acts of appeasing or fawning, but our cognitive brain struggles with connecting the dots.

How I might respond to someone and fawn is a way to keep myself safe when I feel in conflict. For instance, I recently noticed myself fawning in response to a potential conflict with a neighbour. While the details are irrelevant here, it was only when i was reflecting with my friends later did i notice my instinctual response. My need to be safe and people please over-rode my own internal felt sense of knowing we were not doing anything wrong. I avoid conflict and yet have had to deal with it firsthand many times. As a child and youth, i definitely had a fawn response to conflict. My go-to fawn response to conflict with others is something that i have been working on recently. This is especially important in unpacking my own white privilege and internalized stories. Looking back, it reminded me of a recent newsletter article by Rachael Maddox (if you don’t already know of her wonderful work, this is your chance). She spoke about the difference between humility and fawning. Humility is about acknowledging the humanity in everyone involved, with sovereignty. Fawning is the instinctual motivation to be safe when we are afraid to cause harm, and it doesn’t inherently provide space to grow trust and collective healing. Reflecting on this, it showed me again how the two concepts are two sides of the same coin, showing up based on where i am in my nervous system regulation and how my vagus nerve is tending to me.

There has been a lot of talk in the therapy world about the concept of ‘fawning’. Cathy Malchiodi wrote a powerful article recently, using a feminist lens to unpack the inherently sexist connation of the term. New words have been created to speak to its truer meaning. Appeasement, fitting in (a slightly different practice actually) and now Feigning. I do think that there is a place for fawning though, as i have seen and felt it firsthand in my own children. I am not entirely sure if the Fawn response is gendered, and yet it is girls who are taught the art and reward of compliments, as well as finding cuddles acceptable. There may be an inherently internalized sexism at play. It might come from our own mirroring. I do know that these 4 F’s are nervous system instinctual responses, so there is no thought to it.

Connection, attunement and co-regulation are necessary for all creatures. Being close to others is a safety resource and a right (thank-you to Polyvagal Theory we get that info now even more). I don’t want my daughter to stop her desire to connect to others. She has remedied and repaired a lot of conflict with her fawning and quick bounce back. In fact, she is pretty good at repair for a 9-year old. For anyone actually. And i do know i need to support her in her need to fawn. So this change starts with me – scanning my response that might make her fawn in the first place. It’s hard work to be more regulated with a child who has pushed my buttons time and again. And yet, no one said parenting is easy.

This is tenfold when you are healing your own trauma alongside parenting.

So many of us may be starting to see the toll people-pleasing, fawning, and fitting in have on our our self-agency, autonomy and sovereignty. But don’t worry, there are ways to start to heal this survival strategy.

To start, it is very helpful to learn more about your own Limits and Boundaries. Ugh, i said the word Boundaries. Yup, they have a lot to do with healing our Inner People Pleaser. Play with your invisible moat – how close can people get to you physically before you start to feel like they are invading your space. In a world healing from the pandemic of Covid19, this practice is especially timely and poignant.

Fawning is very connected to that felt sense of ‘walking on eggshells.’ This is where you know that there may be an imminent explosion and your instinct is to de-escalate the situation by sacrificing your own needs or people pleasing. So, track your body’s response – put your arms out to see where your border is for instance. Follow your heart rate, tension on your legs, or tightness in your shoulders. Sometimes we don’t catch our survival response until later. So, use some time to reflect on what happened. Can you track your body’s response at the time? Think of what could have happened if you didn’t try to make this right, or manage other’s responses to you. What would happen if you expressed a disagreement openly?

Before answering a hesitant ‘yes’ to someone’s request of you, take a Sacred Pause. Breathe out a slow exhale (think of a breath out 1-2-3) and then see if you can access a gentle but firm ‘no.’ That exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system and vagus nerve – the shift from a reaction to a more intentional response. It relaxes your body from going into fight or flight, which can spawn the drive to fawn.

Take some time to reflect on your journey with fawning. This may be a hard exercise so notice if you have capacity for it. Tracking a narrative timeline is a helpful way to also show that your survival response did just that – helped you survive. It may feel counterintuitive to thank it, but showing gratitude for the Part of you that helped you survive is so healing. There may be a younger version of you that just wants you to know that you are grateful and working on healing any self-hatred or shame that may be attached to the trauma you endured. Remember, you did not deserve the pain that was caused you.

Now moving into your present, think of some people in your life who honour your boundaries, who respect you, and who value you for who you are. When thinking of them, what sensations do you notice in your body? Is there any soften that is more accessible, are you breathing deeper, or maybe your shoulders drop a bit and are more relaxed. If you cannot access a person who honours this, think of a pet, or take some time to watch some movies or TV shows where you can witness characters having this healthy boundary practice. This exercise helps you access your social engagement system where your Ventral Vagus Nerve thrives.

I think we also need to do an about-face with being nice. It presents as less threatening for sure, and can de-escalate conflict. But to what end? I know i have been nice more times than i want to admit, and it’s my own self-worth that paid the price. I kind of love the acronym of being a BITCH – a woman who Believes in Taking Care of Herself. We need to reclaim this word as patriarchy as stolen it from us, like so many things. I am sick of being the nice girl who is trying to soften any possible conflict, be minimizing my own needs and worth in the process.

Treat your skin like the border it is. Notice how your feet ground you, how you hands can honour the distance you need from someone else. I bet you have been tracking what it feels like to wear a mask these many months! In the next week, walk barefoot outside and see what sensations is brought for. Nourish your hands as they hold you in resonance. Get naked in bed, just to feel the sheets on your skin directly. Track your skin’s sensations in connection to your stress of safety response. Think of pins and needles, or that sensation that awakens in the back of your neck. Skin is there to help you track your interocetpion – your response to others. So also make time to show it love and attention. Give it a gentle massage or lotion to savour. Show it gratitude.

One final tip is to orient yourself to your physical space when you feel unsafe. I love the somatic resource of Orienting as it helps me titrate the feeling of unsafe in my body. I either give myself a self-hug and say ‘shhhh’ as a way of self-soothing, and relaxing my body, or i look at an item in the room to orient to outside of myself – this is called Proprioception. When i locate something, be it my favourite photo, a bouquet of flowers, a candle, or something that is my favourite colour, it helps me start to relax a bit. Then see if you can take a deeper breath and honour your need to say no or hold a boundary.

Remember, the Shadow side of connection is Fawning. When we are in our Window of Capacity, we can access that need for connection in a healthy way. Fawning is just one other way to get that need met, when there is dysregulation. And yet we are social creatures who thrive in community. This past year has complicated our relationships for sure. Now that we are in a semi-post state of the pandemic, it helps to notice what your body is telling you as you start to make you re-entry into social life.

I’m a book lover and find community in the books i read. This is a good resource for learning oure about healing your Inner Fawn as well as perfecting a boundary practice. Kimberly Ann Johnson’s book Call of the Wild: How we Heal Trauma, Awaken our Own Power and Use it for Good does a wonderful job unpacking this more. She also has a course called Limits and Boundaries if you want to reclaim your rightful boundaries.

Prentis Hemphill has a beautiful quote that is so fitting here: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and myself simultaneously.”

Exactly.