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PCT Washington – Ridge Lake to Chikamin Ridge

You are currently viewing PCT Washington – Ridge Lake to Chikamin Ridge

PCT Washington – Ridge Lake to Chikamin Ridge

Post author:Brent Henrikson
Post published: August 9, 2018
Post category:Nature / PCT

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Field notes from the therapy chair, the wild, solitude, and love.
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When we’re hurt by someone we love, sometimes the

When we’re hurt by someone we love, sometimes the choice we feel is between turning away from them, or turning inward toward ourselves. Turning away leaves our wounds neglected and can even deepen them by creating more distance in the relationship. Turning inward can help us heal while we stay connected.

In this example vignette, a partner with an avoidant attachment style makes the courageous choice to stay in the room, to surrender to the shame and fear that were dredged up when his partner expressed her hurt with an edge of accusation. Instead of withdrawing in a way that risks a painful rupture, his awareness makes the old wound he carries a little more healed, and a loving response becomes possible.

#emotionaltriggers #avoidantattachment #innerchildhealing #emotionalhealing #healthyrelationships

When we're hurt by someone we love, we have a choi

When we're hurt by someone we love, we have a choice: react outward, or turn inward. Reactivity leaves our wounds neglected and can even lead to conflict that winds up deepening them. Turning inward helps us heal while we wait for a wise response.

In this example vignette, a partner with an anxious attachment style makes the courageous choice to self-soothe, to surrender to her pain that was dredged up when being temporarily forgotten by her partner. Instead of reacting in a way that risks a painful rupture, her awareness makes the old wound she carries a little more healed.

#emotionaltriggers #anxiousattachment #innerchildhealing #emotionalhealing #healthyrelationships

Save this for the next time you get triggered by y

Save this for the next time you get triggered by your partner or find yourself avoiding what needs to be felt.

My process for dissolving defenses to heal underlying core wounds. This applies to turning challenging interactions, with a partner or while single, into opportunities for growth and deeper connection. But it's also a general method for psychological healing, including working with addictive behaviors.

1. Get triggered
2. Remain like a log
3. Name the emotion
4. Catch the urge
5. Turn toward the emotion in the body
6. Stay with it
7. Observe thoughts from a distance
8. Watch energetic shifts
9. Capture the insights
10. Move on stronger
11. Reframe triggers

#emotionaltriggers #emotionalhealing #somatichealing #innerwork #emotionalregulation

If there's one intervention I know as a therapist,

If there's one intervention I know as a therapist, it's turning toward emotional pain, rather than pushing it away or getting swept away by it. Letting it in without letting it take over.

Emotional pain comes in two kinds: the unavoidable and the avoidable. The avoidable kind is what we feel when we resist the unavoidable kind. It's the pain of saying no to pain.

#emotionalhealth #innerwork #acceptance #equanimity #mindfulness

When two partners both treat their triggers as cha

When two partners both treat their triggers as chances to heal, most uncomfortable interactions and insensitive blunders get used for self-awareness and healing, rather than justifications for pressuring the other person to change. When we use triggers to heal, our partner can trust that their mistakes won't be the beginning of a battle, but of our personal growth.

Step 11 of 11 for dissolving defenses to heal underlying core wounds.

#emotionaltriggers #healthyrelationships #innerwork #emotionalhealing #gratitude

Most insight and transformation lies on the other

Most insight and transformation lies on the other side of painful emotional waves. Once on that side, it helps to write down what we've learned, such as where the old defense might have come from and why we no longer need it, and what we can do instead. Over time, as we practice feeling the emotion instead of leaning on psychological defenses, it gets easier and more natural to access our healthiest options, like a limp that goes away as we challenge ourselves to bear weight on the injured leg and strengthen it.

Steps 9 and 10 of 11 for dissolving defenses to heal underlying core wounds. Step 11 is next.

#emotionaltriggers #emotionalhealing #innerwork #journaling #personalgrowth

Core wounds don't heal in just one dose of presenc

Core wounds don't heal in just one dose of presence. They form over years, can take years to heal, and the scars may never fully go away. But every session of staying with our emotional pain is an application of a healing balm that will make a difference over time.

Any moment longer than our usual spent attending to our emotional pain is a dose of medicine and a repetition that will consolidate into skill.

Step 8 of 11 for dissolving defenses to heal underlying core wounds. Steps 9 & 10 are next.

#emotionaltriggers #emotionalhealing #innerwork #healingjourney #somatichealing

Attempting to think our way out of emotional pain

Attempting to think our way out of emotional pain is a common thread underlying almost all defenses.

Biology and culture have both made humans into the big-brained species that survives largely through intellect, so thinking and survival go hand in hand, which is one explanation for why survival often feels so burdensome.

Picture holding two magnets close to each other but not touching, close enough to feel the force between them, but not so close that they fuse. That might be the relationship we want with our thoughts and feelings when we’re sitting with emotional pain.

Step 7 of 11 for dissolving defenses to heal underlying core wounds. Step 8 is next.

#emotionaltriggers #overthinking #mindfulness #innerwork #somatichealing

Usually we have to get pretty sick of our defenses

Usually we have to get pretty sick of our defenses before we find the motivation to do something as unpleasant as sitting with difficult body sensations without trying to make them go away.

When we stay with a difficult emotion in the body, the sensations probably range somewhere between slightly unpleasant and seemingly intolerable. But they are tolerable, at least for some time and to some extent.

Steps 5 and 6 of 11 for dissolving defenses to heal underlying core wounds. Step 7 is next.

#emotionaltriggers #somatichealing #innerwork #emotionalhealing #embodiment

Defenses dissolve in the solvent of our attention.

Defenses dissolve in the solvent of our attention. We can observe the defensive urge (e.g., to attack or defend, to withdraw, to dissociate) and the story that accompanies it, and choose to decline acting on the urge or believing the story. Every time we do this, we free ourselves a little more.

#emotionaltriggers #emotionalhealing #traumaresponse #innerwork #fightflight

Steps 1 and 2 of 11 for dissolving defenses to hea

Steps 1 and 2 of 11 for dissolving defenses to heal wounds. Steps 3 & 4 are next.

#emotionalhealing #innerwork #emotionalregulation #healing #relationships

Some emotional pain is from a new injury, and that

Some emotional pain is from a new injury, and that pain is a signal to protect ourselves, to prevent the damage.

But some (maybe even most) emotional pain is actually of old injuries, and our wise response to that pain is the opposite.

Pain from an old injury needs to be felt. Allowed. Surrendered to. Because that pain is a different signal: it's a sign that you're healing. That pain is like the pain of surgery, or exorcism. The trauma hurt going in, and so it hurts coming out.

Self-protection in that case blocks our healing, but it can FEEL like damage prevention. Since the pain feels so similar, it's easy to mistake one for the other.

#healingtrauma #emotionalhealing #innerwork #emotionalwounds #presence

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