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Trauma Forum Dec 2019
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INITIAL POST:
I had some chances to meet up with the previous client what I had from last module. It was actually really challenging at first to touch base again after taking a month off together. She had made so much progress after we worked together for more than three weeks. But unfortunately she went back into some therapy sessions after a recent death of a close friend. And the theraoy sessions brought up some past trauma memories that resurfaced during our coaching session.What came up in our first session was interesting. We ended up doing a two hour session focusing mostly on just what her deeper need was not really making any moves forward. She just truly wanted to be in a state of being of groundedness and wanted to feel that with another person/a coach. Around the 1:30 mark an even deeper need came up which was creating a community of support behind her so that she could move forward after she realized that she was been so alone in her work and growth. Then the light bulbs turned on in my head and allowed me to pull in a lil more guidance in + gestalt.
I asked her, “What would it feel like to have that community of support in human form as you move forward with your vision?” this took up the entire last half hour of at least 30minute story, yet a much needed story, of what she would like to see in this group of people. S
So at the end of our session we tried something a lil-more out of the box, which was to create a SOUL Circle. A Circle of Trust/A circle of people that the can turn to and check in with on a bi-monthly basis. The group of course are people that listen without judgement, don’t give advice, the just hold space and listen. She was the first client I was able to fully do this with and it’s been pretty amazing to here the updates from the members in her SOUL Circle as well as her being anchored in this coaching time that we now have together.
It has been a month sine we have talked but she is still checking in via emails and short phone calls with me helping her be accountable to her feeling grounded and building community behind herself.
She said last phone call check in ~ “I don’t know what I would do without my five SOUL Circle members. We only meet once a month but I live for those moments for people to just sit and listen to me. All I want is for my words and emotions in heard and felt by others. It gives me hope!”
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Hey Kim, I like how you put it – “interjected thought starters”. I can’t remember which client it was with but I remember asking someone once “What was the best-case scenario?” after they mentioned what the worst-case scenario was and that was a good eye-opener. Plant the seeds of change and watch them grow is what just popped into my head. I too have had some sessions where we didn’t quite get to the deeper need because of something the client wasn’t quite ready to look at yet being in the way and if the client got something out of the session that is helpful that’s what counts right 🙂
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Hi Sheri
I like the idea of asking the client right off the bat what their resources are. Your definition of trauma sounds pretty good to me, and simple enough to not overwhelm someone. -
“step with caution, they are fragile” when a client or nervous system is in trauma had me thinking of how as coaches we are holding safe, sacred space/containers for our clients and that for them to access trauma they need to feel safety and security and that, even just thinking of myself, that even though we do hold that space for them clients may not be open to it, or not completely so we do need to step with caution, or guide them to step with caution and fragility into the unknown, hidden or forgotten places. This reminds me of a client I had who straight up said “this is uncomfortable” during a session but she insisted on continuing the work and was happy she did in the end.
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SUMMARY POST: Wow, the timing on this seems so apropos with what we, as a world community, are dealing with right now. Trauma is so acutely around us as we have to social distance, change working and living patterns, and wonder every day what will happen to our health, family & friends, finances. And when we do come out of this, what will things look like.
We’ve all seen on the news lately where people who have gone into a hyper state where they are buying more than they need, hoarding and taking drastic measures. And, then there are those going into a more hypo state where they’ve shut down and are watching, waiting. I’ve definitely seen this in my local community.
So now is a time where we truly need to hold space for our clients and just people in general – those we know and those we don’t – to allow for the safety and security they need to get through this crisis. I keep reminding myself and saying to others that we have to accept and not judge how each individual goes through this time. As Mel said, we need to step with caution as people are in unknown spaces.
And as we get back to normal life, I believe that what we do as coaches will be a tremendous asset for people who will be dealing with this long after. Understanding, accepting, resourcing and being there to guide with them when needed.
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I initially thought that trauma is not something I would encounter much in my practice because of the profile of the ideal client I will be pursuing. I have since changed my mind and I now realize that trauma is present for everyone, even for high functioning clients, but to various degrees. And for this reason it is important to recognize trauma, to be ready as a coach to handle it, and to be able to partner with the clients in the space they are in.
In my coaching sessions, I have already met trauma several times but I did not always recognized it. My experience was that coaching was no longer possible, the door to learning was closed. The client became activated outside the window of tolerance and got caught in her limbic loop. But I did not recognized it as such though the change was very obvious as she became suddenly very defensive, retreated into her convoluted stories and was no longer present. I honestly got thrown off and worse, likely experienced my own limbic loop, went down my low road, thus experienced my own trauma. Instead of creating safety for the client, I may have doubled down on the coaching, I became more rigid. I got lost, and that is likely what triggered my own trauma.
In addition to not reading well the client state, I did not read my own state. I was just witnessing the sudden degradation of the coaching relationship, which I was trying to control to get back on track.
In one of the Toolbox Integration webinars, Mandy distinguishes resourcing, being a safe place to drop into to come back into the present moment, from bringing back a client experiencing serious trauma. The latter requires more of a directive approach, the client is asked to describe with words the environment s/he is in. Using language and description re-engage the pre-frontal cortex and will help get out of the limbic loop.
Though super uncomfortable, there were a lot of learnings for me in these situations, and taking the time to reflect back on it was crucial for my growth as a coach. Among other things, I have to learn to radically trust (to use Mandy’s term) that the client is in her own perfect process of change and that it is not for me to fix. I also have to learn how to not take it personally, not get thrown off by their stories, and to let go of my expectations to deliver a good coaching session. Instead my responsibility as a coach is to hold a space that is open in a playful way, and that is safe. I also have to be cognizant of my triggers and know my resourcing so that I do not go down the low road myself.
To support the client in trauma situations requires the coach to provide even more support and safety. It is vital to fully appreciate the bigness of the situation and to be sensible that it will be very difficult for the client to be in the present moment during the trauma experience. It is not my role as a coach to get somewhere but to make it possible for the client to come back into the present.
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SUMMARY POST
As with the Brain module, there has been deep learnings for me in this Trauma module.
For years, my strength has been to empower people. That is easy for me to get in that space and it is very fulfilling. In those situations, I feel grounded and strong, I am in control of the situation, and I have good sense to adequately push the limits for others and myself. When coaching, I have noticed times when I lost that place of strength that typically supports me.As mentioned in my Initial Post, I had a couple clients who experienced trauma on a deep enough level where their fight or flight modes were automatically triggered, where they no longer had the ability to listen, hear, learn or open to think differently.
As a coach, I was able to successfully bring one of them to a place where learning could happen again. When contact was recreated, I asked her to remind me who had made the choices she was struggling with. I described the situation as I saw it using my own words, and brought her to see that the impossible situation she was in, was a creation of her own mind, and that she was the sole author of it. Also that her rhetoric was creating the irreconcilable gap that only she could resolve by making a different choice. The choice was hers. She could keep doing what she was doing and continue to deeply suffer or choose a different route. Even though it might not have been so apparent during the session that this was helping, magic happened in-between sessions. When we met the next day, she shared her insights and proudly told me that she “had reset her clock!” She did a 180-degree turn and she was a totally different person. What I believed helped her is the resourcing I suggested she did daily the couple weeks prior, to get her out of a neural cycle that was defeating her. Resourcing was done using past experiences but also future experiences, as the brain does not know the difference.
The outcome of my session with another client was different and we even decided mutually to sever our coaching relationship. And to tell you the truth I was relieved. The couple sessions before had gone in circles. In this last session with this client, she became defensive, assigning blame, tone of voice changed… This situation unexpectedly challenged me to the core. When I am in a situation where I feel like the client is no longer willing or able to hear, where I perceive I have lost the ability to help, instead of allowing it to be and provide the space and safety the client needs, I “freak out”.
Though the outcomes were very different, there were a lot of similarities in terms of how I reacted, who I was being when my fight or flight mode kicked in, and how it contributed to a less than optimal coaching process. One of my biggest learnings as a coach in this module is how I react in such situations, and this was a surprise to me and brought a new level of awareness. It took me a couple of months to recover.
Before being able to be there for a client experiencing trauma, I need to be able to manage my own reactions to situations where I feel lost. I have since reflected on my responsibility in the coaching call “gone wrong”. Not only my reaction did not help, but it exacerbated the situation. When I experienced my own fight or flight sequence, my frustration rose, I became more rigid and more direct, my impatience showed, I lost my sense of humor and playfulness and became serious and confused. Safety and trust for the client eroded during that time, when the client needed it the most.
I have since identified multiple triggers: client not getting something I perceive to be simple, having to repeat myself, client circumventing questions, not being able to help the client. I think it all comes down from feeling I am no longer in control of a situation and that I am lost. Again, great learning moments, though not comfortable ones. And it is now so clear that my reactions contributed to the malaise.
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That was my Initial Post
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Thank you Ben for sharing your experience. I was not familiar with the concept of Soul Circle, but it reminded me very much of my understanding of the Vision Council. I understand the concept of the Vision Council but for me it has been hard to connect to it, to be in communication with his “members”. That is not easily accessible to me. The Soul Circle seems much more available to me, based on your definition: A circle of people that one can turn to and check in. It seems to me that too often the client is trying to do the work on her own, and there is not much outward communication or support outside what the coach provides. I believe identifying a support system is crucial to the success of the client’s endeavor. Asking the client to identify a support system is key, and introducing the Soul Circle concept could be helpful, and letting the client define what it would be for her.
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Hello Kim, Hello Kim, your post makes me ask myself, what could I do to better hold the space not for just my clients but for all the people I encounter along the way, maybe few in persons, but many virtually. Based on my perception, and in light of the Covid-19 situation, I seem to distinguish two main types of people out there. There are these amazing people performing selfless acts and choosing to be generous. Others are caught in worries and greediness and engaged in new selfish behaviors (I am noticing an increased level of littering, delivery people just not concerned about blocking the road and traffic so that it is easier to take care of what they do and may more.) Though super annoying to me, I also realize that people have different ways to deal with this novel situation based on their resiliency and their ability to cope. Often their nervous system seem to be getting the best of them. That said… who do I want to be? Judgmental? Supportive? Accepting? Compassionate? A good time to practice.
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Nadine,
Such a powerful reflection of your experience, and sounds like this experience allowed you a ton of insight into your own process.
As you said here: “The client became activated outside the window of tolerance and got caught in her limbic loop. But I did not recognized it as such though the change was very obvious as she became suddenly very defensive, retreated into her convoluted stories and was no longer present. I honestly got thrown off and worse, likely experienced my own limbic loop, went down my low road, thus experienced my own trauma. Instead of creating safety for the client, I may have doubled down on the coaching, I became more rigid. I got lost, and that is likely what triggered my own trauma.”
I think one of the beautiful things about the trauma module and learning to be able to see a trauma response or a triggered nervous system in others, is that it can help us to objectify; to take ourselves out of the mix and recognize a heightened nervous system and to help to resource without going down the low road ourselves. Of course, this is an ongoing learning process for us all. And when we help our clients resource, we are helping ourselves resource as well.
Great reflections!
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Nadine,
Again, I’m appreciating your thorough and sincere look at your own triggers as you grow from this experience. It is so natural for us to internalize the client’s experience as a reflection of our effectiveness as a coach. However, it is so critical that we learn what our triggers are and learn to watch for them and work with them so that we can stay present and detached from outcomes.
I find it especially helpful when working with a client who is experiencing a trigger to remember that I am working with a nervous system. I actually imagine their nervous system or their amygdala rapid firing because their system perceives a threat or danger, and that whatever the perceived threat is is waaaaaay bigger and older than me. This is about them. And as I recognize that I’m working with a nervous system, it’s easier for me then to see that a triggered nervous system is like a rubber band – either totally wound up tight and ready to pop, or limp and checked out. My focus then becomes about what we might be able to do to help that rubber band get back into a neutral state.
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SUMMARY POST – Realizing I had not posted my summary on this toolbox feed I began to dig back into the Trauma posts to refresh my understanding. Then it hit me – I just had an incredible experience myself as Client that led me into an ah-ha moment for my coaching, too, and that is what I should share with you all! The realization came to me, likely because I was experiencing this first hand as the client, while also observing through my coaching glasses. (Can’t really help it now, can ya?)
I was somewhat timidly approaching a topic with my (amazing!) coach, who was so gentle and supportive, reassuring and encouraging with NO pressure. Allowing me the control of the pace and direction, knowing I did not have to enter into anything I did not wish to do. After grounding and touching base with several resources, which she invited me to return to throughout the session, we proceeded down this path ever so cautiously. Looking back on it now I am aware my fears were so much bigger than needed (that’s hindsight for you, too) of something I was anticipating, yet no clue what it really could be. I had certainly built this up in my mind! Ultimately, I was anticipating the need to share the stories. Walk, once again down the path of hurt, the traumas, re-living them, sharing with her so she would know my pains and be able to help me move through and beyond it. Fix it, right? Tell me what I needed to do to move on. She never invited me to share them, I would have. I didn’t go there, it wasn’t necessary. When the time came, I asked myself what was my intention? It was not to go back there but rather to move into what’s next. So, cautiously we did and will continue to do so. A new story has begun.
My big takeaway: Healing can happen without telling the stories, without re-living the pain again. She didn’t need to know the details and I didn’t have to experience it all again. I already had (many times, right?) It was not necessary for me to bring her into my story, in order for her to guide me through questions about what I was feeling, noticing, needing. Being true to my heart and being soul-directed I didn’t have to go there either. I could focus on how I could write the rest of the story. How I could move on, stepping through the fear and moving beyond it.
Shortly after this experience as Client, I had a session with a client of my own. After having just held this ah-ha moment, I was determined to enter the session with the “end in mind” focusing on the outcome and keeping her in a more comfortable place. I opened with a bit of a new twist, inviting a moment of “visioning the outcome of the session” while taking some deep breaths to center. Asking what a good use of our time would be, she shared about a dynamic that was troubling her and into the story we went. As much as I tried not to go there, I got drawn in to her story. I spent quite a bit of brain power during and after trying to rethink how I opened that session and how I could have done it differently to have not led her back down the path of re-living the struggles she was beginning to loop. Then, I realized that she was not at the same place I had been. She was still in her story. While I had been ready to move beyond, seeking the next steps. She was still processing it. One day she will get there, too. I look forward to walking cautiously, gently, supporting her if and when that time arrives. When we’ve processed and learned all we have to learn from the story and she decides she is ready to grow beyond.
All this to say, we are each unique individuals. Processing and exploring at our pace. Except others where they are. Don’t expect to fix them. There is nothing to fix. They are perfectly where they are meant to be in that moment. Hold a space for them to grow in. We don’t have their answers. We can only provide nutrients to the soil and encourage them to grow and go at their pace, reassuring them they are safe and not alone.
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Trauma, initial post:
I have several clients with issues surrounding trauma. Two of them are bipolar, a result of childhood trauma. I am also working with a 70 year old man who has metastatic liver cancer. He has done both chemo and radiation. One scan said it had disappeared completely, a month later the follow-up scan and mri had the doctors telling him he has 6 to 12 months to live! More recently a massage client asked me if I would meet her in the woods for coaching. She is having emotionally abusive issues with her husband and also her grownup daughter. Being a social worker, she is very articulate in expressing her feelings and connecting her rage, pain and overwhelm with the events of her upbringing and situations from her past.
I’ve noticed I have to be careful when creating the coaching client relationship with clients that have trauma and or mental health issues. They are used to doing therapy and initially seem to have the expectation and hope that I will “fix” them. This expectation is shifted over time as they welcome a deeper understanding and relationship with self and start exploring answers that begin to emerge.
Rereading the section on Trauma has been very helpful. I’ve also viewed some videos with Peter Levine and Thomas Huebl on healing collective trauma. Watching all that is happening in today’s world I am very aware that much of the personal trauma individuals are feeling is exacerbated by the collective trauma. For some a lack of coping skills may mean that the collective trauma is actually foundational to the personal trauma. It can be difficult to differentiate between the two and for some being aware that there exists a collective state of trauma can serve to help in calming the overwhelm and emotional pain and bring a shift in perspective.
I have found at times, I need to be careful not to get hooked into the collective trauma myself. This awareness reminds me not only to get myself grounded and focused in the present it helps me figure out ways to work with my clients in finding the resources that serve them in grounding, coping and creating a more positive future. The concept of resourcing in combination with grounding is very useful.
As I discuss my experiences in this initial post I am keeping it generalized because I have observed similar threads that my clients hold in common. One, that didn’t click immediately, but is now very apparent, is what I at first interpreted as frenetic communication. At first it seemed they would describe the immediate trigger and then they would be all over the place jumping from story to story many being situations from long ago. I had great difficulty following from one story to the next. What I have come to realize is they are expressing the memories of their nervous system. While the stories may have seemed disconnected they were all triggers for emotions that were very similar. This has made me very aware of the importance of solidifying grounding resources prior to the start of coaching so that they are readily accessible when needed.Another common coping skill is the importance of having friends and a social life. I’m not sure yet but my sense is that it provides a mirror for self-valuing. Acceptance from others validates that they are okay in the world. When there is a lull in the social life it is not unusual for self-doubt to creep in and the bad feelings to rise to the surface.
In seeking coping skills that will both serve to prevent the trauma reaction and quell it if it does occur I have been looking into the polyvagal theory. It is often helpful and fits in with bodywork and also mindfulness concepts such as breathwork and meditation. Some techniques are simple and fun and very welcomed. I am finding that another helpful coping skill is simply education and learning as a directive. While it often seems difficult for a traumatized client to feel safe enough to give up the “victim” status they seem to welcome learning more about themselves and recognize neuroplasticity, resourcing and pendulation, polyvagal theory and scientifically proven healing potential of the body in general as offering hope for long term healing. It seems that learning something new distracts from ruminating on negative thoughts and often provides new neural pathways around something positive that may serve to build self confidence.
I also have found truth in the concept of resonant frequency. If I can hold a positive frequency toward the client as he/she tells the story it can be personally grounding and often gives them the strength and understanding to shift and create change in their life. When appropriate, as I tell my own stories of overcoming trauma, this too serves to let them know what’s possible. Happiness is a choice; many people don’t realize this, until it is stated. Interacting with another person, believing they can heal and grow, does much to help them believe in their own potential and to reach it. And not getting “hooked” into their “stuff” also serves to help them from falling too deeply into the pit of trauma despair. I view it as caring non-attachment. I hold the space and the caring and the belief in them so that they can have the safety to decide for themselves how they want to move forward in their life.
I am practicing personal mindsight as I move forward in this realm of trauma. I had intentionally avoided working with trauma until recently. Since I have learned more about collective trauma I have a deeper understanding of the importance of individual trauma and how it has impacted this planet culturally and environmentally. I am learning how to tailor the coaching for individual needs as I better understand the neuroscience behind trauma. It is a slow yet fascinating process for me. Coaching from a developmental perspective there is no way or reason to avoid trauma. It is unavoidable. However developing coping skills and skills of resilience can both prevent trauma from getting stuck in the nervous system when and if it occurs and heal the trauma that may already have solidified in the nervous system. Perspective provides choice in how we interpret and embody an event and Meditation reminds us that we are much more than our circumstances.
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Trauma: Summary Post
I have been working with a client, mentioned in previous posts, for about a year now. It’s been a journey for both of us and has given me the opportunity to put together much of what I have learned throughout the NCC program. It began when she, in an ungrounded state, spoke frenetically about her traumatic childhood, her 40 years of therapy, her dysfunctional marriage and her difficulty accepting her sons new romantic relationship and critical disconnect from herself. She was diagnosed bi-polar and co-dependent along with other “labels” she did not and does not express out loud.
Her trauma was intergenerational and developmental. Depending on the trigger and which part of herself was reacting she could move into fight, flight or freeze.
Flight often manifested by her finding reasons to not go home, sometimes she just sat in her car.
Other times when we met she would be in frantic and jumpy, in fight mode.
I never saw her in freeze mode but she sometimes described the 5 year old sitting in isolation not wanting to move.
The three themes that have come up over and over again throughout the year are:
· Her traumatic childhood due to the death of a younger sibling that her mother never processed and instead made my client feel responsible.
· The inner 5 year old that wanted to be loved and protected
· A husband who has his own mental health issues that no longer shows her any affection and is often intentionally detached from my client and unresponsive to any of her attempts to engage or connect.
· A son who she often expresses his upset with his mother’s behaviors towards him.
As Peter Levine so clearly states her trauma is lodged in her nervous system. It does not take much for her to interpret events as traumatic and to be triggered by friends and family and situations that might otherwise by innocuous. She often considers herself to be “immersed with the dark angel” (which she painted when asked to express herself through her art). She also feels her development was stalled at a very young age and that her 5 year old is looking for love, safety and acceptance. When asked to do a vision board that expressed a positive future representative of herself. She was unable to do this because she couldn’t envision it. The more she tried by cutting pictures and preparing the more aware she became that she did not know her future self. However she did know she wanted to shift away from constant fear and negativity to a life that embraced growth and joy where her 5 year old was integrated with her adult self.
It is apparent that her 60+ year old life was still very affected by her traumatic childhood. 40 years of therapy and she still felt stuck. We discussed comfort zones and how they related to the various parts.
We discussed resourcing; Early on she knew she loved to be in nature and used it as a “resource” for calming herself.
In the beginning my focus was simply on grounding and creating safety. The grounding was done by being out in nature, feeling her body, and paying attention to her breath. Some days it worked some days it didn’t. The safety was created by listening, accepting and largely by responding. She would often send me very long texts and or emails, on occasion there would be a voice mail but this was rare. I would respond sometimes at length but mostly with a few words just to let her know I was hearing her and that we could discuss the issue next time we got together. There were many occasions where she let me know this was of high importance to her and something she rarely experience in therapy. In fact she told me recently that her therapist changed her number so as not to receive any more texts from my client! My approached is not to get hooked into my clients narrative but instead stay focused on their goals and capabilities in reaching them. I find it has helped tremendously when clients feel that someone believes in them. It seems to allow for their inner voice to become clearer in the midst of all the interfects and the voices that hold the trauma and fear.
Early on I discussed the plasticity of the nervous system as a means for creating change. Naturally we used our own trails and treks as a metaphor for choice when working to build a more emotionally and physically comfortable and stable life. This was something she was able to relate to. It often helped to remind her that she had a choice in how she handled her life and traumatic history. And that this choice affects her future.
We used mindsight as a technique for recognizing her actions and choices. I worded it as becoming aware of her awareness. She understood the concept. And said “I’m questioning and answering myself about why I’m feeling my feelings” I would often ask her in a gestalt type of way, about her awareness and then what it meant as she looked at the awareness of her awareness. As she was more easily able to do this we would take it deeper and I would ask her to become aware of her awareness of her awareness. This allowed her to go deeper and deeper into understanding and taking responsibility for her actions.
Fairly recently mindsight served to help her recognize the role that her trauma played in her manipulative behaviors and why. It started when she defied her sons request to not behave in certain ways that affected him and his relationship with his girlfriend and her parents. It was a long painful process to recognize her own behaviors and admit to the extent she manipulates others. It made her aware of her need to be loved, her difficulty accepting that her son was an adult and “doesn’t need her” and “gives his affection to someone else”.
As she was allowing herself to look at her behaviors we further discussed the role of the “objective observer”, my name for mindsight. As we walked through the trail we were following a stream and I asked her to look for the metaphors that might be helpful. I thought it was a good time to reintroduce the concept of the sit spot and with her agreement I left her sitting by a stream with marsh-mallows and other flowers beside it, for 10 minutes. When I returned she talked about movement and flow and the swirling of the water around objects and how it related to her own sense of flow. She recognized how her manipulation actually can block the flow. And made things worse rather than better.
She also realized that she has a great need to help others. In a follow up texts she stated: “I Help depressed people what if they become undepressed. What if they don’t need me.
I am frightened of myself. Im going to stay in pain unless I choose to get out of it. I project my hurt on others and give them power to hurt me. I give people the power to help me also . I become dependent on them”. These were big realizations to admit to herself.
She is concurrently listening to a guru and doing meditation with him most mornings. She lets me know our work together is aligned with what she is learning from the guru and that her meditations help deepen her knowing and becoming comfortable with self.
In a recent email to me she thanked me for helping her incorporate nature’s metaphors into her development. She is seeing the changes in herself and in her last email wrote: “It’s amazing, thoughts are coming to me in an ordered fashion (usually jumbled). I meditated and felt clarity. I do a lot of interp of reality/nature as you showed me. This is much more gratifying than DBT which suggests similar-but not colored by the inner self.” The more I do this work the more I recognize the powerful effect nature has on an individual’s ability to relax into themselves and recognize that they are part of something much larger. It shifts perspective. It shifts reality.
So what have I learned this past year?: Resourcing comes in many forms and changes as trauma is being processed. Support has to be without expectation while providing a scaffolding for change and holding a safe space for it to occur. Accepting someone as they are provides the safety for them to look at themselves. Recognizing someone’s strengths helps them to see them and utilize them for themselves. NCC provides numerous modalities and techniques for supporting a client’s journey. I used many of them. Some worked some did not. Through it all my client knew I cared and supported her and that seemed to be what mattered most. It’s been a journey for me as well. Seeing the degree of change that has occurred is amazing and the fact that she sees it feels it and appreciates it in herself, is joy. Her narrative is changing and the trauma is losing its grip. And what is also very exciting for me, is this co-dependent person that thought she could only do a sit spot because she knew I would be returning, is now beginning to realize her own strength and abilities and healthy individuality…and doesn’t need to manipulate, but recognizes when she does!!
