Home » Articles posted by Randolph Harris II International Institute (Page 299)
Author Archives: Randolph Harris II International Institute
Apparently Everyone is Waiting on the AC Transit Bus 54 to Fruitvale
From your words, I can hear a good heart beating strongly and your ideal is glittering. If we understand that traumatized children and adults get stuck in stand your ground or quickly escape and in chronic shut-down, how do we help them to deactivate these defensive maneuvers that once ensured their survival? Dear friend, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. However, rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God (Jehovah, Allah, LORD) rests on you. Do not be ashamed, but praise God (Jehovah, Allah, LORD) that you bear that name. Some gifted people who work with trauma survivors know how to do this intuitively. My dad used to walk around the house with a brightly colored beach ball, and when he saw his kids were angry or frozen in their bedrooms, he would flash them a big smile. We rarely responded. Then, a little later, he would return and accidentally drop his ball close to where we were sitting. As he leaned over to pick it up, my dad would nudge the colorful ball gently towards us, then we would push it back in return. Gradually, he got a back, back, forth, and forth going and before long you would see smiles on all our faces. Man is always yearning for life, and even suffering from the biggest frustration or setback you should not despair, but should ignite the fire of hope for life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 3
The civilization of youth is the civilization of struggles, which struggles with the times and experience. Youth is the king, spring and essence of one’s life—as the encouragement to us all. From simple, rhythmically attuned movements, Dad had created a small, safe place where the social-engagement system could begin to reemerge. In the same way, severely traumatized people may get more out of simply helping to arrange chairs before a meeting or joining others in tapping out a musical rhythm on the chair seats than they would from sitting in those same chairs, like they are waiting AC Transit bus 54 to Fruitvale, and discussing the failures in their life. One thing is certain: Yelling at someone who is already out of control can only lead to further dysregulation. Just as your dog cowers if you shout and wags his tail when you speak in a high singsong, we humans respond to harsh voices with fear, anger, or shutdown and to playful tones by opening up and relaxing. I love you for your absolute sincerity. Thank you for being that something of extraordinary value in my life. Thinking of you fills me with energy. We simply cannot help but respond to these indicators of safety or danger. #RandolphHarris 2 of 3
Sadly, our educational system, as well as many of the methods that profess to treat trauma, tend to bypass this emotional-engagement system and focus instead on recruiting the cognitive capacities of the mind. Despite the well-documented effects of anger, fear, and anxiety on the ability to reason, many programs continue to ignore the requirement to engage the safety system of the brain before trying to promote new ways of thinking. The last things that should be cut from school schedules are chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else involving movement, play, and joyful engagement. When children are oppositional, defensive, numbed out, or enraged, it is also important to recognize that such bad behavior may repeat action patterns that were established to survive serious threats, even if they are intensely upsetting or off-putting. #RandolphHarris 3 of 3
Better Call Bobby with the Wood Kiss
Lustre of jewelry reflects the radiance of blue sky. Beautiful dark green reflects the holy Sun. Hot wind makes me feel the strength of your teachings. Thank you. The ventral vagal complex (VVC) evolved in mammals to support an increasingly complex social life. It guides eye contact, hearing, eating, speech, singing, nursing, kissing, smiling, and some would say, direct heart to heart contact. Because of its role in making contact between different people favorable, the ventral-vagal system is a way of achieving personal safety, but it requires a moderate amount of actual safety to develop. All mammals, including human beings, band together mate, nurture their young, defend against common enemies, and coordinate hunting and food acquisition. The more efficiently the VVC synchronizes the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, the better the physiology of each individual will be attuned to that of other members of the tribe. #RandolphHarris 1 of 4
Thinking about the VVC in this way illuminates how parents naturally help their kids to regulate themselves. Newborn babies are not very social; they sleep most of the time and wake up when they are hungry or wet. After having been fed they may spend a little time looking around, fussing, or staring, but they will soon be asleep again, following their own internal rhythms. Early in life babies are pretty much at the mercy of the alternating tides of their sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and their caveman brain runs most of the show. However, day by day, as we coo and smile and cluck at them, we stimulate the growth of synchronicity in the developing VVC. These interactions help to bring our babies’ emotional arousal systems into sync with their surroundings. The VVC controls sucking, swallowing, facial expression, and the sounds produced by the larynx. When these functions are stimulated in an infant, they are accompanied by a sense of pleasure and safety, which helps create the foundations for all future social behavior. The brain is a cultural organ—experience shapes via the VCC is enormously rewarding. What begins as the attuned play of mother and child continues with the rhythmicity of a good basketball game, the synchrony of tango dancing, and the harmony of choral singing or playing a piece of jazz or chamber music—all of which foster a deep sense of pleasure and connection. #RandolphHarris 2 of 4
We can speak of trauma when the system fails: when you beg for your life, but the assailant ignores your pleas; when you are a terrified child lying in bed, hearing your neighbor scream as her boyfriend beats her up and drags her down the hallways by her hair; when you see your biddy trapped under a piece of metal that you are not strong enough to lift; when you want to push away the manager who is abusing you, but you are afraid you will be punished. Immobilization is at the root of most traumas. When that occurs the dorsal vagal complex (DVC) is likely to take over: Your heart slows down, your breathing becomes shallow, and, zombielike, you lose touch with yourself and your surroundings. You dissociate, faint, and collapse. The natural state of mammals is to be some what on guard. However, in order to feel emotionally close to another human being, our defensive system must be temporarily shut down. In order to play, mate, and nurture our young, the brain is required to turn off its natural vigilance. Many traumatized individuals are too hypervigilant to enjoy the ordinary pleasure that life has to offer, while others are too numb to absorb new experiences—or to be alert to signs of real danger. When the Christmas Day smoke detector of the brain malfunctions, people no longer run when they should be trying to escape or stand their ground when they should be defending themselves. #RandolphHarris 3 of 4
Many people feel safe as long as they can limit their social contact to superficial conversations, but actual physical contact can trigger intense reactions. However, achieving any sort of deep intimacy—a close embrace, sleeping with a mate, and Netflix and Chill—requires allowing oneself to experience immobilization without fear. It is especially challenging for traumatize people to discern when they are actually safe and to be able to activate their defenses when they are in danger. This requires having experiences that can restore the senses of physical safety. Hear, O LORD (Jehovah, Allah, God), my righteous plea; listen to my cry. Give ear to my prayer—it does not rise from deceitful lips. May my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right. Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me, you will find noting; I have resolved that my mouth will not sin. Show me the wonder of your great love, you who saved by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Faith is a fine invention for gentlemen who see; but microscopes are prudent in an emergency! To lose one’s faith surpasses the loss of an estate, because estates can be replenished—faith cannot. Inherited with life, belief but once can be; annihilate a single clause, and human’s beggary. O LORD (Jehovah, Allah, God), you bring me into a colorful World, a limitless World, my heart is calling and saluting you. #RandolphHarris 4 of 4
Is someone Pulling the Roulard over your Eyes?
For our theoretical explanation of the nature of wit, harmless wit must be of greater value to us than tendency-wit and shallow wit more than profound wit. Harmless and shallow plays on words present us the problem of wit in its purest form, because of the good sense therein and because it has no tendency nor underlying philosophy to confuse the judgment. With such material our understanding can make further progress. At the end of a dinner to which I had been invited, a pastry called Roulard was served; it was a culinary accomplishment which presupposed a good deal of skill on the part of the cook. “Is it home-made?” asked one of the guest. “O, yes,” replied the host, “it is a Home-Roulard” (Home Rule). As I remember, this improvised joke delighted all the guests and made us laugh. In this case, as in countless others, the feeling of pleasure of the hearer cannot have originated from the tendency or the thought-content of the wit; so we are forced to connect the feeling of pleasure with the technique of wit. The technical means of wit which we have described, such as condensation, displacement, indirect expression, etc., have therefore the faculty to produce a feeling of pleasure in the hearer, although we cannot as yet see how they acquired that faculty. By such easy stages we get the second axiom for the explanation of wit; the first one states that the character of wit depends upon the mode of expression.
Let us remember also that the second axiom has really taught us nothing new. It merely isolates a fact that was already contained in a discovery which we made before. For we recall that whenever it was possible to reduce the wit by substituting for its verbal expression another set of words, at the same time carefully retaining the sense, it not only eliminated the witty character but also the laughableness that constitutes the pleasure of wit. We are taught above all by an observation not to put aside tendency wit when we are investigating the origin of the pleasure n wit. The pleasurable effect of harmless wit is usually of a moderate nature; all that can be expected to produce in the hearer is a distinct feeling of satisfaction and a slight ripple of laughter; and as we have shown by fitting examples at least a part of this effect is due to the thought-content. The sudden wit without tendency. As the technique may be identical in both, it is fair to assume that by virtue of its purpose, tendency-wit has at its disposal sources of pleasure to which harmless wit has no access. It is not easy to survey wit-tendencies. Wherever wit is not a means to its end, i.e. harmless, it puts itself in the service of but two tendencies which may themselves be untied under one viewpoint; it is either hostile wit serving as an aggression, satire, or defense, or it is obscene wit serving as a sexual exhibition.
Again, it is to be observed that the technical for of wit—be it a word- or thought-witticism—bears no relation to these two tendencies. We all know what is meant by a smutty joke. It is the intentional bringing into prominence of sexual facts or relations through speech. It must be added that the smutty joke is directed toward a certain person who excites one sexually, and who becomes cognizant of the speaker’s excitement by listening to the smutty joke, and thereby in turn becomes sexually excited. Instead of becoming sexually excited the listener may reaction to the smutty joke with shame and embarrassment, which merely signifies a reaction against the excitement and indirectly an admission of the same. The smutty joke was originally directed against an individual and may be comparable to an attempt at seduction. If a man tells or listens to obscene jokes in male society, the original situation, which cannot be realized on account of social inhibitions, is there by also represented. Whoever laughs at a smutty joke does the same as the spectator who laughs at sexual aggression. The sexual element which is at the basis of the obscene joke comprises more than that which is peculiar to both genders, and goes beyond that which is common to both genders, it is connected with all these things that cause shame, and includes the whole domain of the excrementitious. However, third person, who now as a listener is bribed by the easy gratification of his own libido. It is curious that common people so thoroughly enjoy such smutty talk, and that it is a never-lacking activity of cheerful humor.
Even though the Gods are Crazy and even though the Stars are Blind
Almost as soon as man discovered the existence and function of the heart, he recognized that it was influenced by human companionship and love. Most of us have, at one time or another, felt our hearts beating rapidly when we are close to those we love, or occasionally, when we have been offended by others. Many of us have felt our hearts sin as if pressed by some crushing weight, after the loss of loved ones. In an endless variety of verbal and nonverbal dialogues with others, we have learned that human beings have varied, and at times profound, effect on the cardiac systems of other human beings and animals. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 7
Long before scientists began, with the assistance of sophisticated electronic monitoring devices, to catalogue the various ways that human companionship could alter the heart, physicians were already well aware of its influence. Indeed, the very antiquity and ubiquity of this knowledge has, unfortunately, led many of us to take it for granted. It has also served to obscure the fact that while we recognize the power of human contact, we do not understand it. The precise magnitude, generality, and (most importantly) the mechanism of the effects of human contact on the heart have not yet been carefully examined. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 7
Still, it is now well known that a vast array of human interactions normally alters the heart in ways that are profound—even deadly. It would be remarkable if human contact did not influence our hearts. Like the air we breathe, it envelops every aspect of our lives. A simple visit to the doctor, arguments, reassurance and praise, Netflix and Chill, social gatherings, competitive sports, the loss of a friend or loved one, jealousies, humiliations, human triumphs, the cuddling of a child, the silent hand-holding between two lovers, the quiet comforting of a dying patient—all these affect the heart. Trauma is expressed not only as stand your ground or escape, but also as shutting down and failing to engage in the present. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 7
A different level of brain activity is involved for each response: the mammalian stand your ground or quickly escape system, which is protective and keeps us from shutting down, and the caveman brain, which produces the collapse response. You can see the difference between these two systems at any big pet store. Kittens, puppies, and birds constantly play around, and when they are tired they huddle together, skin to skin. In contrast, the snakes and lizards lie motionless in the corners of their cages, unresponsive to the environment. This sort of immobilization, generated by the caveman brain, characterizes many chronically traumatized people, as opposed to the mammalian panic and rage that make more recent trauma survivors so frightened and frightening. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 7
Almost everyone knows what the quintessential stand your ground or quickly escape response, road rage, feels like: A sudden threat precipitates an intense impulse to move and attack. Danger turns off our social-engagement system, decreases our responsiveness to the human voice, and increases our sensitivity to threatening sounds. Yet for many people panic and rage are preferable to the opposite: shutting down and becoming dead to the World. Activating the stand your ground at least makes them feel energized. That is why so many abused and traumatized people feel fully alive in the face of actual danger, while they go numb in situations that are more complex but objectively safe, like birthday parties or family dinners. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 7
When fighting or running does not take care of the threat, we activate the last resort—the caveman brain, the official emergency system. This system is most likely to engage when we are physically immobilized, as when we are pinned down by an attacker or when a child has no escape from a terrifying caregiver. Collapse and disengagement are controlled by the DVC, an evolutionarily part of the parasympathetic nervous system that is associated with digestive symptoms like suddenly needing to use the restroom at this very moment, and nausea. It also slows down the heart and induces shallow breathing. Once this system takes over, we may no longer even register physical pain. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 7
If thieves came to you, if robbers in the night—oh, what a disaster awaits you—would they not steal only as much as they wanted? If grape pickers came to you, would they not leave a few good grapes? You should not march through the gates of my people in the day of their disaster, nor seize their wealth in the day of their disaster. You should not wait at the crossroads nor cut down their fugitives, nor hand over their survivors in the day of their trouble. The day of the LORD (Jehovah, Allah) is near for all nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 7 of 7
Surely the Eyes of the Sovereign LORD are on the Sinful Kingdom
Every human act, good or ill, is an angel to guide or warn. After trauma the World is experienced with a different nervous system, that has an altered perception of risk and safety. Neuroception is a word used to describe the capacity to evaluate relative danger and safety in one’s environment. When we try to help people with fault neuroception, the great challenge is finding ways to reset their physiology, so that their survival mechanisms stop working against them. This means helping them to respond appropriately to danger but, even more, to recover the capacity to experience safety, relaxation, and true reciprocity. There are many ways of showing a heart. Deep, deep, and still deeper we go, if we would find out the heart of a man. Unauthorized and abhorrent thoughts will sometimes invade the best human heart. After extensively interviewing and treating six people who survived plane crashes, two people reported having lost consciousness during the incident; even though they were not physically injured, they collapsed mentally. Two went into panic and stayed frantic until well after we had started treatment. Two remained calm and resourceful and helped evacuate fellow passengers from the burning wreckage. Similar responses range of responses #RandolphHarris 1 of 4
Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the ailments of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities. The autonomic nervous system regulates three fundamental physiological states. The level of safety determines which one of these is activated at any particular time. Whenever we feel threatened, we instinctively turn to the first level, social engagement. We call out for help, support, and comfort from the people around us. However, if no one comes to our assistance, or we are in immediate danger, the organism reverts to more primitive way to survive: stand your ground or quickly escape. Compassion of the heart decides for itself. We fight off our attacker, or we run to a safe place. Fear plucks the feather from the wings of the soul and sits it naked and shivering in a vault, where the passing of a common hodman’s foot above sounds like the king of terrors coming. If we cannot fight off our attacker, nor run to a safe place—we cannot get away, we are held down or trapped—the organism tries to preserve itself by shutting down and expending as little energy as possible. We are then in a state of freeze or collapse. The present evil we dread is always the worst. It is good, when calamities befall us, that we should look into ourselves, and fear. #RandolphHarris 2 of 4
This is where the many-branched vagus never comes in, and understanding the brief anatomy is central to understanding how people deal with trauma. The social-engagement system depends on the nerves that have their origin in the brain stem regulatory centers, primarily the vagus—also known as the tenth cranial nerve—together with adjoining nerves that activate the muscles of the face, throat, middle ear, and voice box or larynx. When the ventral vagal complex (VVC) runs the show, we smile when others smile at us, we nod our heads when we agree, and we frown when friends tell us of their misfortunes. When the VCC is engaged, it also sends signals down to our heart and lungs, slowing down our heart rate and increasing the depth of breathing. As a result, we feel calm and relaxed, centered, or pleasurably aroused. The vagus nerve also called the pneumogastric nerve is connected to the trachea, esophagus, pancreas liver, colon, stomach, and other major parts. It registers heartbreak and gut-wrenching feelings. When a person becomes upset, the throat gets dry, the voice becomes tense, the heart speeds up, and respiration becomes rapid and shallow. The living being usually has three responses to threat. The social engagement system: an alarmed person signals danger and calls for help. VVC. Stand your ground or quickly escape: Teeth may be bared, the face of rage and terror. SNS. Collapse: The Body signals defeat and withdraws. DVC. So if you wonder why someone may go out of their way to avoid you and your meetings, it is because that individual sees you are a threat, and chooses to escape from the chaos. #RandolphHarris 3 of 4
Any threat to our safety or social connections triggers changes in the areas innervated by the VVC. When something distressing happens, we automatically signal our upset facial expressions and tone of voice, changes meant to beckon others to come to our assistance. However, if no one responds to our call for help, the threat increases, and the older limbic brain jumps in. The sympathetic nervous system takes over, mobilizing muscles, heart, and lungs for stand your ground or escape. Our voice becomes faster and more strident and our heart starts pumping faster. If a dog is in the room, it will stir and growl, because it can smell the activation of our sweat glands. Finally, if there is no way out, and there is nothing we can do to stave off the inevitable, we will activate the official emergency system: the dorsal vagal complex (DVC). This system reaches down below the diaphragm to the stomach, kidneys, and intestines and drastically reduces metabolism throughout the body. Heart rate plunges (we feel our heart drop), we cannot breathe, and our gut stops working or empties (literally scaring the shit out of us). This is the point at which we disengage, collapse, and freeze. The Lord (Jehovah Allah) has sworn, I will never forget anything that have done. Will the land not tremble for this, and all who live in it mourn? All the people who hurt others for fun will die by sword, all those who say ‘Disaster will not overtake or meet us. #RandolphHarris 4 of 4
Agenda for Business Meeting Curriculum Task Force
How to spot a Doot: they used material fallacies errors in the processing of using materials as proof. Logical errors and processing of reason. Psychological fallacies claims that rest on the emotional appeal rather than logic and evidence. They may also use manufactured or questionable statistics. They may use a relevant statistics that do not prove implied or stated claim that they are offered as evidence supporting the claim. They may also use sample size and adequate are unspecified sample size is very small resulting in the margin of error and excess or minus 3% or you were left guessing with the sample size might have been. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5
Doots will also self-select samples they will choose to participate in a survey they are not selected as part of random they represent the sample they want presented. They will also tend to use data statistics stuff that sold and try to present it as new. These types of individuals generally misuse Authority they are not experts but they claim to be. Their citations art quotes I am not able to find the source for them so it’s likely that they’re fabricated. They use bias sources special into groups for individuals who stand to gain money on the issue or power Prestige influence by simply taking a certain position on the issue. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5
These critics known as Doots use authorities that are not in correspondence with their field of experts they may for example have a professor of biology examining a washing machine to see how it works. These types of critics also use logical fallacies which are basically hasty generalizations they tend to gather groups of information and say because German Shepherds are mean and vicious dogs all German Shepherds have bad dogs when that is not the case. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5
Doots are very emotion based, they act on feelings and not logic. They also make false analogies like they compare two items that are completely different and try to say they are similar when they are not for example they might compare turkey Farmers to politicians and talk about the way that they do business so when the two are very different types of organizations. These false dichotomies they make a mistake in their correlation for causation they use loaded language to invoke sort of a strong emotion usually a negative dramatic emotion a lot of times they are false cycle logical fallacies turned into personal attacks will attack your credibility instead of the real issue they do not answer questions and they appealed to their traditions which may not be part of the dominant group. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5
Before you can come to America, get a job at the city, state or local level, a psychological evaluation needs to be done. Also, anyone seeking a job in the media requires a psychological exam. To cure a Doot, they require intense training in logic, English, and history. Doots are usually brainwashed and will repeat things that people tell them because they sound good. And you will hear these same comments being repeated over and over from other people, but they cannot truly explain what they mean. When a person is able to elaborate about what they are staying and remain present and coherent, then they are clear. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5
Father of Silence Recalls Chaos
To be benevolent rather than malevolent is probably a true feature of our species. Being about to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Numerous studies of disaster response around the globe have shown that the social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress and trauma. People who end up in total social isolation, because of their career, often pass away prematurely of coronary disease. There are, however, far more subtle loneliness traps in our society. Not every lonely person is trapped by interest in a career, pursuit of independence, or a love-seeking belief system. Many lonely people are not particularly hung up about these issues. Several readily admit that they would give up anything is only they could find the right person with whom they could share their lives. And yet, they still find themselves enmeshed in isolation. Part of the problem is that a lot of individuals have very few formal institutions that deal specifically with problems of human loneliness. This is a particularly glaring weakness when one considers that there are formal institutions for practically every other human problem.
Hospitals care for the sick, school tach the uneducated, PTA groups help the schools, and so forth. On closer examination, however, it become apparent that the great majority of these organizations have a major covert prerequisite. The person must either already have companionship or declare himself sick. These covert requirements that make it difficult for those lacking companionship to find legitimate social outlets in existing groups. Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issues is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we require a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. You do not require a history of trauma to feel self-conscious and even panicked at a party with stranger—but trauma can turn the whole World into a gathering of unlawful aliens. Many traumatized people find themselves chronically out of sync with the people around them. Some find comfort in groups where they can replay their combat experience, rape, or torture with others who have similar backgrounds and experiences (I guess he is making a point).
Focusing on a shared history of trauma and victimization alleviates their searing sense of isolation, but usually at the price of having to deny their individual differences: Members can belong only if they conform to the common code. Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim groups promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually only leads to future alienation. Gangs, extremist political parties, dishonest city councils, and religious cults may provide solace, but they rarely foster the mental flexibility required to be fully open to what life has to offer and as such cannot liberate their members from their traumas. Well-functioning people are able to accept individual differences and acknowledge the humanity of others. In the past two decades it has become officially recognized that when adults or child(ren) are too skittish or shut down to derive comfort from human beings, relationships with other mammals can help. Dogs, birds, fish, cats, horses, and even dolphins offer less complicated companionship while providing the necessary sense of safety. Birds, dogs, and horses are now extensively used to treat some groups of trauma patients. Also, always remember to thank God (Jehovah) for your life and everyone in it, because from the beginning God (Jehovah) chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the spirit and through belief in the truth.
Deliverance Promised for Little Boy Blue
God implants in the hearts of his pupils a desire to advance his ends, but human agents are compelled to employ natural means. There are people who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. What God says is best, is best, though all the people in the World are against it. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. All of the little signs we instinctively register during a conversation—the muscle shifts and tensions in the other person’s face, eye movements and pupil dilation, pitch and speed of the voice—as well as the fluctuation in our own inner landscape—salivation, swallowing, breathing, and heart rate—are linked by a single regulatory system. All of the function listed above are product of the synchrony between the two branches of the autonomic nervous system (ANS): the sympathetic, which acts as the body’s accelerator, and the parasympathetic, which serves as its brake. These are the reciprocals that the English naturalist and geologist, Charles Robert Darwin, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution spoke of. And working together, they play an important role in managing the body’s energy flow, one preparing for its expenditure, the other for its conservation.
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is responsible for arousal, including the stand your ground or escape response. Almost two thousand years ago the Roman physician Galen gave it the name “sympathetic” because he observed that it functioned with the emotions (sympathos). The SNS moves blood to the muscles for quick action, partly by triggering the adrenal glands to squirt out adrenaline, which speeds up the heart rate and increases blood pressure. The second branch of the ANS is the parasympatheric (“against emotions”) nervous system (PNS), which promotes self-preservative functions like digestion and wound healing. It triggers the release of acetylcholine to put a brake on arousal, slowing the heart down, relaxing muscles, and returning breathing to normal. Feeding, shelter, and mating activities depend on the PNS. There is a simple way to experience these two systems for yourself. Whenever you take a deep breath, you activate the SNS. The resulting burst of adrenaline speeds up your heart, which explains why many athletes take a few short, deep breaths before starting competition. Exhaling, in turn, activates the PNS, which slows down the heart. One should pay particular attention to the exhalation, since deep, long breaths out help calm you down. As we breathe, we continually speed up and slow down the heart, and because of that the interval between two successive heartbeats is never precisely the same.
A measurement called heart rate variability (HRV) can be used to test the flexibility of this system, and good HRV—the more fluctuation, the better—is a sign that the brakes and accelerator in your arousal system are both functioning properly and in balance. We had a breakthrough when we acquired an instrument to measure HRV, and later we will talk about how HRV can be used to help treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Polyvagal Theory (Polyvagal refers to the many branches of the vagus nerve or the pneumogastric nerve—which connects numerous organs, including the brain, lungs, heart, stomach, and intestines), provided a more sophisticated understanding of the biology of safety and danger, one based on the subtle interplay between the visceral experiences of our own bodies and the voices and faces of the people around us. It explained why a kind face or a soothing tone of voice can dramatically alter the way we feel, It clarified why knowing that we are seen and heard by the important people in our lives can make us feel calm and safe, and why being ignored or dismissed can precipitate rage reactions or mental collapse. It helped us understand why focused attunement with another person can shift us out of disorganized and fearful states. Basically, we have to look beyond the stand your ground or defense methods and put social relationships front and center in our understanding of trauma. It is also suggested new approaches to healing that focus on strengthening the body’s system for regulating arousal are also helpful. Human beings are astoundingly attuned to subtle emotional shifts in the people (and animals) around them. Slight changes in the tension of the brow, wrinkles around the eyes, curvature of the lips, and angle of the neck quickly signal to us how comfortable, suspicious, relaxed, or frightened someone is.
Our mirror neurons register their inner experience, and our own bodies make internal adjustments to whatever we are ready to pounce on them or run away. When the message we receive from another person is “You are safe with me,” we relax. If we are lucky in our relationships, we also feel nourished, supported, and restored as we look into the face and eyes of the other. Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms. Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. We are part of that tribe even when we are by ourselves, whether listening to music by Paris Hilton, or that other people created, watching a Golden State Warriors basketball game at the Oracle arena or on television (our own muscles tensing as the players run and jump), or preparing a spreadsheet for a sale meeting (anticipating the boss’s reactions). Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with other. If we look beyond the list of specific symptoms that entail formal psychiatric diagnoses, we find almost all mental suffering involves either trouble in creating workable and satisfying relationships or difficulties in regulating arousal (as in the case of habitually becoming enraged, shut down, overexcited, or disorganized). Usually, it is a combination of both. The standard medical focus on trying to discover the right drug to treat a particular “disorder” tends to distract us from grappling with how our problems interfere with our functioning as members of our tribe. Every man, woman, and child will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty (Jehovah is the name some use) has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God (Jehovah) forever and ever.
Inescapable Shock from the White Squall by the Lincoln Lawyer
In the film White Squall, starring Ryan Phillippe, he played a bright young man called Gill Martin. Gill got along with everyone and wanted to fit in. However, he had a fear of heights and one day the Skipper forced him to climb a robe, but Gill screamed and hollered as he climbed the rope because it reminded of how his brother fell from a tree and died when they were climbing together. However, the skipper wanted to help Gill come out of his shell and grow up to be a fearless man. This situation is similar to a phenomenon covered in most introductory psychology courses: your mouth starts to water when you hear a dinner bell, which signals that food is about to be served. However, if the ringing of the bell becomes random, and you keep finding an empty buffet whenever you go to fill your plate, you gradually learn to ignore that bell, and its ringing no longer makes you salivate. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 10
WHITE SQUALL, 1996, (c)Buena Vista Pictures
So using this same method, skipper thought that if he could force Gill to climb the rope and nothing bad happened that he would eventually overcome his fears and maybe even learn to enjoy heights. Much like with the bell, losing an automatic trained association between heights and death, or the bell and food, this is known as extinction. This is the corner stone of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment (CBT), in which people are repeatedly exposed to signals that remind them of the past trauma until the interpretive system in their brains realizes that they are, in fact, safe, and that whatever is going on is simply a noise, sensation, or image that no longer constitutes a threat. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 10
Listen to what the parable of the White Squall means: When anyone hears the message about the Albatross and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along their journey at sea. By climbing that rope, with supervision, Gill received joy and this will remove fear from his heart and allow more blessings to come into his life because he is not living in fear of anything. Again, the kingdom of Heaven hidden in the ocean. When Gill Martin found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy persevered by overcoming his fears of heights and climbed the rope symbolically reaching Heaven, reconnecting with his brother and making him proud. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 10
What is less well known is if Gill Martin survived his trip on the Albatross and if so what would he have been like after overcoming almost drowning in the icy white squall. As the White squall hit the ship, Gill Martin was sleeping and when he woke up, he was under water, up to his nose and locked in his room with no means of escape. In another version of the film, Gill Martin survived, but after the water receded he continued to be terrified, even though he was physically uninjured. He broke down emotionally, behaviorally, and physiologically. Sometimes he would lay around motionless, barely paying attention to what was going on around him. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 10
This loss of emotions and motions is a sign of ongoing terror, which had obliterated any curiosity in his surroundings. We now know that physical immobility and loss of curiosity are also typical of frightened, traumatized children, and some adults. Gill would sometimes sit shaking in the corner of his room, while other times, he reacted in anger because he lost his friends and his brother by perusing his dreams. This is well-known behavior in traumatized adults and children. After exposure to extreme stress, an individual finds a new internal equilibrium different from the previous organization of their internal housekeeping. The traumatized Gill Martin kept acting as if he was in grave danger long after the waters of the white squall had receded. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 10
When measured Gill Martin’s physiology, it was found both markedly increased and depressed heart rates in response to minor stresses, signs of instability of the autonomic nervous system, as well as full-blown startle reactions in response to slight changes in his environment, like the approaching of a stranger asking for assistance. These dramatic changes are attributed to the existence of two conflicting physical impulses: during the white squall while the ship was being flooded, Gill Martin was trapped in his room and had been physically immobilized—trapped in his cabin—while his body was programmed to run and escape in the face of life-threatening danger. This resulted in: the collision between the two contrary processes: one of excitation and the other of inhibition, which were difficult to accommodate simultaneously…[which] causes a breakdown of equilibrium. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 10
What Gill Martin was experiencing is called inescapable shock, a physical condition which the organism cannot do anything to affect the inevitable. Confrontation with the reality that there is nothing one can do to stave off the inevitable leads to learned helplessness, a phenomenon that is critical for understanding and treating traumatized and humiliated human beings. After all, the agony of Gill Martin being trapped in his cabin while the Albatross was sinking in a white squall may not be so different from children who are put down by their parents or teachers, and have nowhere to go, or women and men who are trapped in violent intimate relationships struggling with two opposing impulses: one, to maintain a loving relationship and the other, to escape their pain, hurt, and betrayal, like Ben Crawford (Ryan Phillippe) in the hit ABC TV series Secrets and Lies. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 10
It was noted that after washing ashore, Gill Martin no longer responded to people, it was like he lost part of his soul, and loud sounds no longer bothered him. He barely reacted to things that would upset most people. We see similar reactions in traumatized people: Reggie Campo was allegedly sexual assaulted and beaten by Louis Roulet, in the film Lincoln Lawyer, but Louis claims that he was late to pick the prostitute up and she was beaten by her former boyfriend and is just trying to get some money out of him because he is a rich real estate investor. This is possible, women who are beaten will often take their aggression out on an innocent man, while she may have barely reacted to her boyfriend’s brutality. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 10
Nonetheless, for traumatized people, the important factor of life means that all creatures require a purpose—they require the power to organize themselves to make their way in the World, like saving up to go to college, or saving up to buy a house so you can have shelter in the Winter, and learning skills to make a living. One of the most devastating effects of trauma is that it often damages the reflex purpose. How do people regain the energy to engage with life and develop themselves to the fullest? The sense of purpose involves both movement and emotions and God. Emotions propel us into action: beneficial emotions to appetitive states like food and love, and negative emotions to defend and protect ourselves (and our offspring). #RyanPhillippe 9 of 10
This invites us to focus on emotions and movements, not only as problems to be managed, but also as assets that are required to be organized to enhance one’s sense of purpose. See, all your angry enemies lie there, confused and humiliated. Anyone who opposes you will die and come to nothing. You must worship no other gods, for the LORD, whose very name is jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you. If God can save Gill Martin from a white squall or Louis Roulet from a lying prostitute, just know he can resurrect your life, your body, your mind, and spirit, too. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 10
The God Concept and New World Science—Life is about Rhythm and we are a Rhythm Machine
I wish our hearts are fresh flowers, blossoming under your sky, adding more color and romance for your beauty Heaven. We vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood. Man and the higher animals also have instincts in common. All have the same senses, intuition, sensation, passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones such as jealousy suspicion, emulation, gratitude, and magnanimity. You must not bow down to them nor worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. One will observe that we human share some of the physical signs of animal emotion. Feeling the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you are frightened or baring your teeth when you are enraged can only be understood as vestiges of a long evolutionary process. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 10
Your smiles show on children’s faces. Your gratification flows into mother’s heart. Oh, God, thank you for painstakingly giving me the light of your youth, I will be grateful to you all my life. When a man sneers or snarls at another, is the corner of the canine or eye tooth raised on the side facing the man who he addresses? Mammalian emotions are fundamentally rooted in biology: They are the indispensable source of motivation to initiate action. Emotions (from the Latin emovere—to move out) give shape and direction to whatever we do, and their primary expression is through the muscles of the face and body. These facial and physical movements communicate our mental state and intention to others: Angry expressions and threatening postures caution them to back off. Sadness attract care and attention. Fear signals helplessness or alerts us to danger. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 10
These are rebellious people, deceitful children, unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction. They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Word of God!” God replied: Because you have rejected my message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among tis pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern. I appreciate your personality very much, which is like a mirror, you would rather be broken than distort facts. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 10
We instinctively read the dynamic between two people simply from their tension or relaxation, their postures and tone of voice, their changing facial expressions. Watch the documentaries: White Squall, Chaos and Lincoln Lawyer, starring Ryan Phillippe, and guess the quality of the relationships between the characters. We often read other mammals (Angels, Demons, Neanderthals) in the same way. The fundamental purpose of emotions is to initiate movement that will restore the organism to safety and physical equilibrium. The origin of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Behaviors to avoid or escape from danger have clearly evolved to render each organism competitive in terms of survival. However, inappropriately prolonged escape or avoidance behavior would put the human at a disadvantage in that successful species preservation demands reproduction which, in turn, depends upon feeding, shelter and mating activities all of which are reciprocals of avoidance and escape. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 10
Therefore, if an organism is stuck in survival mode, its energies are focused on fighting off unseen enemies, which leaves no room for nurture, care, and love. For us human, it means that as long as the mind is defending itself against invisible assaults from the news reporters, our closet bonds are threatened, along with our ability to imagine, plan, play, learn, and pay attention to other people’s requirements. We are still exploring how the body and the brain are connected. Intense emotions involve not only the mind, but also the digestive organs, intestines and the heart, lungs, kidneys, brains, sexual organs, bones, skin, eyes, hair, lips, and spinal cord. Heart, guts, and brain communicate intimately via the pneumogastric nerve, the critical nerve involved in the expression and management of emotions in both humans and animals. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 10
When the mind is strongly excited, it instantly affects the state of the viscera (collectively, the internal organs of the body, especially those contained within the abdominal and thoracic cavities, such as the liver, heart, or stomach, and others); so that under excitement there will be much mutual action and reaction between these, the two most important organs of the body. Of course we experience our most devastating emotions as gut-wrenching feelings and heartbreak. For many lonely or isolated individuals, illness itself becomes the only legitimate method of gaining attention. Many lonely people experience very real secondary gains by getting ill: at last for a brief period during hospitalization they are flooded with the compassion provided by the hospital staffs, nurses, and physicians who care for them, inadvertently providing something that is missing in their lives—human attention. #RyanPhillippe 6 of 10
The typical single, widowed, or divorced individual remains for longer in the hospital for the identical medical problems than do married people…and the cost for the acquisition of this secondary type of human companionship soars into uncounted trillions of dollars in the United States alone, health care for all is costing American taxpayers $1.21 trillion over the 2016-2025-time span. When one examines data on average length of time individuals spend in in short-stay hospitals (other than a sanatorium or mental hospital) for eye, ear, nose, throat, the nonmarried are significantly over-represented. Average persons at all ages over 17, for all types of physical illness, those that live alone spend on average 13.5 days in the hospital, while the average married individual only spends 8.5 days in the hospital for similar illnesses. #RyanPhillippe 7 of 10
In a similar fashion, the typical widowed, divorced, or separated person in the age range 45-64 visits a physician 5.9 times a year, while their married counterparts make 4.6 visits. These figures are even more surprising in light of the fact that almost 78 percent of married people have hospital insurance, while only 64 percent of single, 59 percent of divorced, 56 percent of widowed and 45 percent of separated people have such insurance. It would seem that society could find less expensive ways for delivering human attention. As long as we register emotions primarily in our heads, we can remain pretty much in control, but feeling as if our chest is caving in or we have been punched in the gut, or that or spine is dangling by a string can be unbearable. We will do anything to make these painful sensations go away, whether it is clinging desperately to another human being, angel, demon, or God, rendering ourselves insensible with drugs or alcohol, or taking a knife to the skin to replace overwhelming emotions with definable sensations. So just pray to God and ask for forgiveness and to remove the pain and suffering. #RyanPhillippe 8 of 10
LORD, please make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me show love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand, not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we awake to eternal life. Friendship has the expertise and observation of the best doctor, the diligence and discretion of the best nurse and the care and patience of the best parents. Nothing in the World is better and more pleasing than friendship. Without it, the World would lose the Sun. #RyanPhillippe 9 of 10
Until recently, this bidirectional communication between body and mind was largely ignored by New World Science, even as it had long been central to traditional healing practices in many other parts of the World. Today, it is transforming our understanding of trauma and recovery. The God which is God of nature doth never teach unnaturalness. God sees the deepest dissembled thoughts, nay sees the thoughts before they be thought. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His Worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? God sees not as man sees; His will be done. The Angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street of the city. #RyanPhillippe 10 of 10
