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By Jeanne Denney
I have this friend named Mark Brady who cares a lot about parents. Since I have four children and we are friends, he often asks me to review some of the things that he writes to see how it plays in Peoria (so to speak). Sometimes I give him a hard time. Anyway, my friend Mark is a very smart guy who helps parents be better parents and understand more about the real nature of children. He knows a lot about neuroscience and neuro-development. His heart is not too bad either. He is probably the most generous person I have ever met. Not only that, he has written several great books on listening (one co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Leigh entitled A Little Book of Listening Skills …I wholeheartedly recommend it). Anyway, one day in the middle of parenting frustration I wrote to him saying “Hey, Mark, how about writing a book for people on holding compassionate listening space for parents? A little book of skills for listening to and actually supporting parents.” To which he answered (in a very Mark-like way) “Say more about this. I like this idea a lot.” And somehow that challenge developed into this short essay.
I have a lot to say about how our culture fails to support or listen to parents. I am not sure when I first noticed that this was a problem. Maybe it was 20 years ago after the birth of my first child, when I noticed that none of my intellectual friends called me anymore. Overnight I became an untouchable, as if something about me as a mother was beyond what they could manage. Maybe it was one of my first airplane trips with a toddler when I noticed people rolling their eyes and visibly recoiling from the idea that they might have to sit near us. Maybe it was in the way that well-meaning grandparents undermined the establishment of breastfeeding (and my confidence in myself as a sufficient mother) by constantly commenting that the baby was hungry and needed a bottle, until I finally relented. Maybe it was the way that people on subways offered unsolicited criticism and advice as I struggled to handle my child’s behavior, or commented loudly and critically to one another about our struggles. These are but a few of many such examples. Another way of saying this is that the energetic space that I lived in as a parent seemed to become very small somehow, and this did not seem right at all.
Once, feeling deeply into and expressing the vague sorrow and isolation I felt as a parent trying to handle four young children (most often alone) a wise friend said to me “Oh…now I understand. You are talking about the ritual, tribal abandonment of mothers.” The ritual, tribal abandonment of mothers! That phrase hit my consciousness like a sledge and remains alive to this day. It expressed what I felt better than anything I’d ever heard. Since then, whenever I have used that phrase to describe the feeling I have seen on the faces of other young mothers, it has elicited a similar “aha!” – a momentary stunned look of surprise that such deeply felt sorrow could be named so succinctly.
Yes, it is about the tribe leaving me alone with all of the tasks of raising these children. Yes it is about the tidal wave of tribal projections onto me as a mother and their longing for me to take care of THEM. Yes, it is about tribal fear of touching into this need and sometimes this pain. Yes, it is about feeling alone with a task that feels impossible to do well alone. Yes, the tribe has resigned from its role in the life of my children and from its needed and necessary role in supporting me.
“For God’s sake,” I thought, “this isn’t the way that children should be raised.” It is my idea that children in a healthy culture need to be raised, not just by parents or mothers, but by communities of adults supporting each other in the tasks. As I reflect on it, the operational word in that last sentence seems to be the word “adults.” Indeed as more and more people struggle to reach a true maturity and a capacity for holding and expressing compassion, it is harder and harder to find others willing to show up for the collective task of being an adult caring for children.
One of the tasks of adulthood of course, is skillfully listening. This is why I really like my friend Mark. He not only has shown up to be an adult who cares about parents and children, he is a wise and expert listener and teacher of listening skills. And there is probably no better way to counteract the contracting space around parents than to listen to them. Not by judging, or telling, or instructing, or giving me long lists of expectations for improving my child’s performance (like many teachers, schools and politicians are prone to do), or by watching while holding your heart at bay, but by entering into a true compassionate holding. Even in silence. Even in public.
I have a picture in my mind that will probably never leave until the day I develop dementia. It is a scene from when my children were young. I happened to be in a mall without them. I saw a mother with a baby in a stroller and a two year old in full tantrum running for the escalator. It was one of those scenes full of pathos, wherein a mother just has to “miraculate” some kind of response out of simple desperation. We all saw it. That is when I heard two women in front of me talking. One said: “I remember those days.” And the other one, probably in inner recoil from memory of her own abandonment, coolly responded “Yeah … I’m glad those days are over.” I remember feeling in that disengaged assessment the perfect expression of the ritual, tribal abandonment of mothers. It was not that someone had to be there to help that mother physically. We were too far away. It was that there in public, witnessing hearts did not extend out in compassion. Kind hearts did not listen to a silent plea for understanding, holding and help. In my mind there is no better way to help children than learning this adult act of silent holding and loving witness for their parents. I think that my friend Mark would say: “What is listening if it is not that?” And I would agree with him.
Sexual relations are the hauplan, the fundamental structure for all social behavior. So asserts Donald Pfaff in his new book, The Neuroscience of Fair Play. In this book he lays the foundation for explaining how the biological roots of The Golden Rule might have evolved. Sex has long been the “advance scout” of evolutionary change, responsible as it is for passing on and/or shaping gene expression from generation to generation. One suspects there is more to the story than this. And there is.
It’s estrogen! Sex and estrogen are wonderful bedfellows it turns out. Estrogen is one key believed to play a much greater role in directing genetic expression than we’ve previously thought. It seems to be especially helpful in facilitating social recognition and other friendly behaviors. One way estrogen does this is by triggering the release of a brain chemical called enkephalin, a general purpose pain reliever, which Pfaff claims “permits females to put up with mating behaviors they might otherwise find obnoxious” (A true blessing indeed, otherwise there is no human evolution!).
We also need to add a little oxytocin to the story. Add oxytocin – also involved in bonding, social recognition, trust-building and generosity, which estrogen appears responsible for as well – and you have the recipe for what Pfaff calls the blurring of the “me-you” distinction. It is this boundary-blurring which is at the heart of the Golden Rule. If my minimally damaged brain, in reasonably good working order, sufficiently blurs the boundary between me and you, then anything I do to harm you, harms me. And of course, anything I do to help you, helps me. Mirror neurons help in this regard as well.
Many of the same genes and neurochemicals with big, boring names like vasopressin, prolactin, F2 alpha and cholecystokinin (produced in the gastrointestinal tract), seem to also support processes that produce boundary-blurring and mating and Golden Rule behavior. This “self-other” suppression also turns out to be responsible for the Irrational Commitment that more often than not results in skillful parenting (Another supremely lucky thing!).
And, as we might expect, the production and expression of many of these elements can be adversely affected by … stress, depression and anxiety. Stress, it turns out, not only changes me and the ways I relate to the world, but it significantly changes the way I perceive the world I relate to – by significantly affecting my ability to compassionately blur the boundaries between me and you. In The End of Stress as We Know It, neuroscientist and stress expert Bruce McEwen, identifies the measure of my susceptibility to stress as the “allostatic load” I’m required to carry. The higher the baseline number of my load, the worse it is for me and my brain, and for you (not to mention people who are not American). The higher the load, the lower my capacity for boundary- blurring. What helps to lessen that load? You guessed it: estrogen! Here’s a direct quote from McEwen:
We still viewed estrogen in terms of its effect on sexual behavior; we didn’t think that this sex hormone would itself turn out to be a key player in allostasis. Yet that’s just what estrogen proved to be. In addition to its role in reproduction, estrogen has a plethora of effects on the brain. Many are interrelated, and many seem to be pathways through which the brain achieves positive health. Estrogen stimulates neurons to form new synapses and synapses to form new branches; it encourages the growth of new neurons and protects against the destructive effects of free radicals. Of all the potential benefits to the brain, the most striking is estrogen’s ability to protect memory.
So, here’s how I’m guessing things work: when I proactively maintain my daily stress at manageable levels – more often than not I don’t even realize when I’m under stress – the estrogen levels in my brain are optimized. When they’re optimized, good things happen in terms of neurogenesis – the growth of new baby neurons, and in synaptogenesis – the growth of many and new connections between neurons. Increased neuron numbers and connectivity tend to strengthen immune function – more resources are now available to bring to bear. When I have more resources available for increased immune function, I also have them available for blurring the boundaries between me and you. The result – an organic, authentic, increased capacity for love.
Last week I promised to offer up a few of the treatment modalities with which I am familiar that seem to work in helping to access, process and integrate disorganized memories and experiences stored in the body and brain. This list is by no means intended to be exhaustive, and it’s a good idea to realize that I have learned of them primarily as first or secondhand anecdotal accounts.
Realizing that, you will be well-advised to recognize that not all modalities work on all conditions, nor do they work well with all people, and that different practitioners possess differing levels of skill. Some of these treatments have large numbers of vocal critics, and a search of the Internet will provide you with their viewpoints. One important factor in a successful treatment outcome often seems to be how well you resonate with a practitioner “right brain to right brain.” That is, how much you really “feel felt” by that person. So, with that caveat in mind, here we go (Click on the name of any treatment type and it will take you to a page that provides more descriptive detail about that modality)…
Advanced Integrative Therapy (Seemorg) – Asha Clinton
Berkal Technique – Beverly Berkal
Coherence Therapy – Bruce Ecker
Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) – Francine Shapiro
Cranial Sacral Therapy – John Upledger
Emotional Freedom Techniques – Gary Craig
Neurofeedback – Lee Gerdes
Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics – Bruce Perry
Somatic Experiencing – Peter Levine
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy – Pat Ogden
Hakomi – Ron Kurtz
Holotropic Breathwork – Stan Grof
Thought Field Therapy – Roger Callahan
City at Peace – Paul Griffin
The one modality that most resonates with my right brain from this list is the last one, City at Peace. From a social neurobiological perspective it is brilliantly conceived and masterfully applied. It provides a context that empowers kids in supporting each other to access, identify and tell the hard truths about their most painful life experiences. It then gives them a structure which enlists the heart, brain, mind and body in expressing those painful experiences in physical movements that result in healing, “triumphant actions.” If you ever have a chance to view the documentary that HBO did several years ago, download the iTunes short, or attend a City at Peace performance, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. Or better yet, gather together a bunch of friends and start a local chapter in your nearbyhood.
When I was four years old I remember standing in the bathroom staring up at my father shaving. “Watch how hard I can hit, daddy,” – my balled little fist was already headed for his private parts. He responded with a booming, painful yell that sent me scurrying out of the bathroom and downstairs to my mother. Shortly after that incident, my father left for parts unknown and I didn’t see him or hear a word from him for 20 years. This is not an optimal way to resolve the Oedipal Complex. The four year old Son is not supposed to send Father packing and precipitously assume his place as the head of the family.
Twenty years later my father initiated contact with me. I wasn’t aware of harboring any anger or resentment towards this man that I didn’t really know. As far as I was concerned, my life after he left was what it was. As we began spending time together – occasional walks around North Hollywood, outings at Santa Anita and Del Mar racetracks, an occasional dinner and a movie, I soon discovered that emotionally, this man at 55 was much younger than I was at 25. Nevertheless, I didn’t really feel like he needed to be forgiven for anything … except there began to appear increasing clues to the contrary.
One day we began playing Cribbage, a game he taught me as an adult. We started out playing for a penny a point, and on this day, the cards just seemed to magically fall my way. I got dealt hand after hand of 24, and I even remember two back-to-back 29 hands, the highest you can possibly get in Cribbage. By the end of the evening, my father owed me more than $350!! He was making a living as a professional gambler in those days, and he was beside himself at losing so much money to someone who had barely learned the game. What I noticed though was that I took excessive pleasure in this victory, and I wasn’t above letting him know it.
A number of years later we got together when I drove down to visit him at his apartment in San Diego. We were trying to decide on a movie to see. I told him I didn’t care, and that he should pick one. He said didn’t care either, and insisted I pick one. On the way home from the theater he complained bitterly about the waste of money, and what a stupid movie it was, and with little subtlety, how stupid anyone must be who would choose such a film. Without a word, I simply pulled my truck over to the side of the freeway and stopped. “Get out,” I said to him. He refused. I opened my truck door, walked around to his side and opened his door. Then I forcibly pulled him out. He took a swing at me. I stepped inside his swing and punched him with one hand and pushed him with the other. He went down onto the tarmac. I walked back around to the driver’s side of the truck, calmly got in and drove away. I never saw my father again. But that fistfight on the side of the San Diego freeway finally began the long process of my work to actively forgive him.
As I write this, he has long been forgiven. I have cleared his and my own trespasses out of my heart-brain-mind-body, and what I now know is that significant damage resulted to his brain from childhood beatings, life on a chain gang, and the trauma he suffered in World War II. His brain pretty much looked like this is my best guess. And what I know most strongly is that having to abandon his wife and children was unquestionably his own tragic version of Sophie’s Choice.
Yet, the question arises, why couldn’t I simply decide to forgive my father and be done with it long before the freeway incident? There are many answers to that question, but the social neuroscience answer that most matches my experience is that trauma and neglect seem to be embodied experiences, stored away in the very fabric of the body’s tissues. They don’t simply live only as words and memories in my brain. I engaged in many efforts to deal with father (and mother) and forgiveness over the years, from the Fischer-Hoffman Process to the work of Sidney Simon to A Course in Miracles to extended Christian and Buddhist contemplative retreats and practices. In all honesty, I can’t say much helped. And in fact, there is mounting evidence that when we surface traumatic experiences and memories, and don’t somatically integrate and resolve them, we actually do further damage to our bodies and brains. That research also seems to match my experience.
Well then, what actually does work? In recent years, with the advent of an increasingly sophisticated collection of brain imaging technologies, we are creating a variety of healing methodologies that are beginning to show significant clinical and scientific efficacy. Next week I’ll provide a list of modalities that I know about or have personally experienced that have made an appreciable difference for me or friends or colleagues. Stay tuned.
