Filed under: Body-Inclusive Psychotherapy, Counseling, Gay Therapy, Jung, LGBT, LGBTQ, Mindfulness, Somatic Experiencing, Somatic Therapy | Tags: #somatic, Gay, LGBT, meditation, Psychology, Psychotherapy
Becoming Our Own Protective Container
By
Payam Ghassemlou Ph.D.
As human beings, we need a sense of safety. We can’t thrive without it. Given the current sociopolitical circumstances in America, many of us don’t feel safe. As a gay man, it doesn’t make me feel secure when I witness the dismantling of our LGBTQ+ rights by homophobic politicians. Since the mental health of the individual and sociopolitical factors are deeply intertwined, no wonder we are seeing more anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and suicide than ever before.
At times like this we need to learn to become our own protective container. A vessel in which to settle ourselves and access our sense of safety. Luckily, we all have a protective container, which is our body. Our body has amazing protective and healing potentials. We just need to learn how to access it. A settled body can be a resource to contain us during turbulent times. By learning how to work with touch, breath, movement, gesture, form, and their accompanying sensations, we can tap into our somatic resources. We can also notice and work with images and meanings that emerge when working with our body-based resources. Working with these resources not only help us to ground ourselves but also to manage stress and feel empowered. They can also lead to a physically felt experience of self and well-being. For example, noticing and following our breath with the intention to connect with our physical body is one way to access our somatic resources. Awareness of breath is the most accessible way to the present moment, and one of the fundamental teaching of many spiritual paths. Witnessing the journey of the out-breath and the return of the breath back into our body can be a grounding experience. I often notice, when I mindfully pay attention to the space in between the out-breath and in-breath, I am more grounded and present in my body. Being grounded and present in my body help me respond more effectively to challenging situations. It is the opposite of being impulsive and reactionary.
As more research on utilizing somatic therapy is showing positive results with self-regulation and healing, we are entering an era of somatic technology. An era of turning to our somatic resources as a starting point for healing. Many of us associate technology with complicated devices outside of ourselves. In fact, somatic technology can be a set of practices and methods that rely on our natural bodily resources and is accessible to everyone. Such technology is based on our own somatic wisdom and awareness in the service of healing and growth.
Somatic technology that works with bodily resources might help humanity to evolve. We were not always human beings. We evolved from sea creatures to something else. Then some million years after that, we became human beings. The journey continues, and we evolve again. Perhaps, working with somatic resources within ourselves, and learning to settle ourselves in our body is how we are contributing to this journey of human evolution. Perhaps, each time we settle ourselves in our body, we are designing ourselves in a new way.
I have gained more respect for the body as I am learning more about its amazing functions. For example, our body comes with already built in autonomic nervous system (ANS) that provides many vital functions. The ANS is the part of the nervous system that governs the fight, flight, or freeze instinct and is responsible for many unconscious bodily functions such as breathing, digesting food, and regulating the heart rate. It also plays an important role of supplying information from our organs to our brain. In addition, the ANS plays an enormous role in helping us experience safety. Once regulated, our ANS can help our body settle and make it easier to tap into our power and resist toxic stuff like discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, class, and more. It is also easier to handle many other stressful situations that can overwhelm us. When I experience prejudice based on my gayness or my status as an immigrant in the United States, I notice how my body gets activated. Noticing and working with my body’s activation and willingness to ask for support from other empathic people is a starting point to take back my power in such circumstances. Having somatic tools to deal with activation helps to regulate my nervous system and become my own protective container.
For some of us, the biggest challenge on having a “body-inclusive approach” toward becoming our own container is the difficulty experiencing a sense of safety in our bodies. Since our ANS is shaped by our life experience, having a history of unresolved trauma or dealing with a current overwhelming situation can negatively influence our ANS’s ability to help us feel safe. Stephen Porges’, Bessel van der Kolk’s, and Peter Levine’s research and writings have significantly reworked my understanding of how the nervous system responds to threat and trauma. We now know the ANS can become dysregulated due to the thwarted responses of fight, flight, or freeze in the aftermath of trauma. Relying on neuroception, a term coined by Porges, the ANS helps our body to differentiate between safety, danger, and a life threat. Neuroception is automatic. It does not go through thinking. Everything from sound to smell to temperature in our environment, people’s tone of voice, and eye contact can influence our neuroception. Neuroception is like a “guardian angel” that helps us take immediate action in the face of danger or threat. Its goal is to keep us safe and alive. When neuroception does not function properly due to unhealed traumas, it can make us feel unsafe even where there is no real threat.
We can’t become our own protective container without knowing how to claim our body from our unhealed traumas. Trauma is not only about the bad things that happen to us but also what we keep inside as a reaction to those things. According to Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, trauma is more about “what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness.” Resmaa Menakem, the author of My Grandmother’s Hands states, “Our bodies exist in the present. To our thinking brain, there is past, present, and future, but to a traumatized body there is only now. That now is the home of intense survival energy.” Such intense survival energy, left undone, can keep our body in a stressful state of trauma response. Therefore, much of the healing from our traumas need to happen through the body. In particular, the nervous system needs to be regulated. As Peter Levine stated, “Trauma is not in the event, but in the nervous system.”
Jungian psychology talks about the shadow, the dark side of the personality that sometimes the conscious mind is avoiding. Even though the shadow can also be a positive aspect of us, not dealing with it can cause anguish. Incorporating this concept here, we can say our body has a shadow too. From a somatic perspective, the shadow can be the incomplete bodily responses that have been trapped in the body and not been dealt with. In other words, our nervous system is designed to help our body get mobilized and deal with threatening situations. When our body is ready to respond to a threat and there is not enough time or resources for our body to complete its natural protective responses, what ended up happening is our body gets stuck with intense survival energy. When our body does not release this survival energy, it stays trapped in our nervous system and dysregulates it. Not addressing the body’s shadow, our bodily responses that are trapped, can lead to many physical and emotional problems including nightmares, “too many accidents,” and number of medical problems with no logical explanation. Many somatic therapists, in particular, trained Somatic Experiencing Practitioners (SEPs), can offer techniques to help people with the release of a trapped trauma response and the regulation of the nervous system. It is important to use a body inclusive approach to healing with the guidance of trained professionals who have formal training in somatic modality.
In her book, Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, Deb Dana discusses Stephen Porges’s theory and makes Polyvagal Theory more accessible for clinicians who wish to apply it to their clinical practice. She explains how the ANS responds to sensations in the body and signals from the environment through three pathways of response: “ventral vagus, sympathetic nervous system, and dorsal vagus.” These pathways can impact our participation in life, and how we cope with many situations including sociopolitical factors.
When it comes to healing our body from trauma and regulating our nervous system, we have an ally called the ventral vagus. Accessing the health, growth, and restoration resources of the ventral vagus system, we can support our personal growth. Deb Dana discusses how being firmly grounded in our ventral vagus pathway can help our body to feel safe and our social engagement system to come online. When the body feels safe and our social engagement system is not overwhelmed with distressing sensations, it is easier to connect with people, nature, our pets, ourselves, our spiritual path, and the present moment. As explained earlier, the quality of our breathing can influence our ANS and support ventral vagus activity. For example, slow conscious breathing can increase the parasympathetic tone. That is why the awareness of breath is an important practice to regulate the ANS. Also, since the nervous system becomes what it senses, by meditating on pleasant sensations of warmth, tenderness and aliveness, we can recruit ventral vagus activity, and shape the nervous system not only toward safety and security, but also love. We can become a container for love when we embody our pleasant sensations as we notice a loving experience.
Our sympathetic system (“stress response” or “fight or flight response”) gets activated in response to danger. Many of us who don’t feel safe in America are often in a state of sympathetic activation. Ongoing sympathetic activation can be dangerous for our body due to increased production of the stress hormone cortisol. Learning to turn our body into a vessel of protection through regulating our ANS, we can be more effective in pushing back against dark forces in America. Such dark forces are trying to strip our civil liberties. We need more than ever to settle in our protective container and connect to our sense of aliveness.
As mentioned earlier, there is a dark side to our nervous system. The physiology behind it involves the dorsal vagus working in partnership with fear. Dorsal vagus is another nervous system pathway that when it works in partnership with the ventral vagus can help us among many things, to pray, meditate, sleep, relax, and make love. When dorsal vagus is activated with intense fear, it can throw the body into a freeze state. It is difficult to become one’s own container and fight oppression when the body remains in dorsal vagus shut down mode. This is one reason why healing from trauma can contribute to our effort to protect our democracy.
The world in its current state needs more love. The body can become the container for this love. Just like a watermelon has a protective shell to house its sweetness, our body is home to the sweetness of our soul. Inayat Khan described the body as “a garment of the soul.” This garment needs our help to settle as our soul journey continues. Our body can help deepen our relationship to our soul when we focus on love and kindness during meditation.
With one nervous system at a time, we can learn to release the effect of our unresolved trauma which often blocks our movement toward wholeness and redeem our aliveness. Increased somatic awareness can help people not stay frozen in oppressive political circumstances and march toward liberation. As Nietzsche stated, “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.” This wisdom is real because “the body never lies.”
© Dr. Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D. is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (Psychotherapist), in private practice in West Hollywood, California. http://www.DrPayam.com
Filed under: Counseling, LGBT, Love, Psychotherapy, Relationship | Tags: Coming Out, Gay, Iran, LGBT, Persian
Coming Out for Gay and Lesbian Iranians
By Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D.
As a gay Iranian living in Los Angeles, I would like to do my part in bringing attention to the fear, shame and isolation that many gay Iranians (gay primarily refers to the entire LGBT community) experience living in Iran and overseas. Per my dialogue with other gay Iranians, who are still living in Iran or have recently escaped the country, and as noted in several news articles, countless number of gays have been tortured and persecuted by the Iranian government. It has been reported that undercover Iranian law enforcement has entrapment operations that arrest and execute suspected gay people in secret prisons. Despite extreme violence against gay people in Iran, many still risk their lives by trying to exercise their basic human needs to connect and build loving relationships. They are brave people for jeopardizing their lives this way.
The world knows that not only the gay population but Iran itself is a victim of oppression. With worldwide recognition, the 2009 uprising in Iran has gained respect internationally at the cost of many sacrificing their lives just to be differentiated from the regime of the current dictator, Khamenei. More international efforts are being called to help Iran.
Gay Iranians who live abroad are dealing with other sets of challenges, including the struggle to come out and live an authentic life. They may not deal with Iran’s oppressive government, but they still find themselves oppressed by both intrinsic and extrinsic homophobia. Growing up in a homophobic and heterosexist society contributes to the angst of shame and rejection that most gay Iranians experience. Heterosexism dictates only one kind of existence and it is being married to the opposite sex and raising children. Any deviation from such a traditional lifestyle is denounced by individuals and religious groups that patronize heterosexism. One can only imagine how it feels like for LGBT people to grow up in such societies.
Extrinsic homophobia that many gay people experience includes being bullied and called derogatory names, not having freedom to marry, getting fired from their job, being blamed for AIDS, and becoming victim of gay bashing. As long as gay people are subject to homophobic mistreatment, the fight to challenge homophobia needs to continue.
The remedy for the negative impact of homophobia and heterosexism is self acceptance. Learning to take pride in one’s gay identity is an important step toward healing. Pride and self-acceptance requires work and dedication which involves participation in gay-affirming counseling sessions, attending coming out groups, volunteering for gay pride events, reading self affirming books, and building friendships with other gay people.
Gay Iranians often deal with lack of family acceptance and support. Many Iranian families who migrated to the United States live in close knit communities. Most of which live in Southern California and are most commonly referred to as Persians. For the most part, the Persian community does not embrace gayness. Lack of acceptance by the community and by their family members make it very difficult for some gay Persians to come out. As an immigrant myself, I understand that having a strong relationship with one’s family and one’s community are vital in order to survive in a foreign country. Many gay Iranians live a double life as a way to avoid jeopardizing such vital support. Staying “in the closet” helps many gay Iranians avoid rejection from their family and their community, but it comes with a high price. Many closeted gay people resort to lying and hiding their true identity which later on can lead to negative feelings like dishonesty and disingenuous. Gay individuals need to obtain support in order to avoid remaining a victim of homophobia and live a double life.
Coming out involves a degree of differentiation and establishment of a personal identity outside one’s family. Another reason gay Iranians might have a harder time coming out is due to difficulty in having a different identity than what is expected from their own family. A traditional Iranian family is patriarchal, and the father is the undisputed head of the family. The mother tends to encourage her children to respect their father’s authority and seek his approval. For the most part, no one dares to question this system, sacrificing one’s needs to gain parental approval. In many Iranian family systems, there is no room to express one’s gay identity. In most Iranian families coming out is viewed as “bringing shame to their family.” It is not uncommon for Iranian parents suppress their gay children by using guilt factors like accusing them of being “namak nashnas” (Persian for ungrateful).
Even though Persians who migrated to the United States are very educated people, still many of them believe that being gay is a choice and one can always change. I disagree on the other hand. It has never been a matter of choice for me and my intention of coming out to my family during my early twenties is to have a real relationship with them and stop pretending.
Sadly, for some repercussions of “coming out” can entails family violence, homelessness or extreme financial burden. The decision to come “out of the closet” is a continuous process that requires support from other individuals who have relevant experiences. Each individual has to assess his or her personal safety before deciding to move forward and come out. No one should be pressured or forced to come out.
Iranian families, who are dealing with their children coming out, also go through a painful journey. Many parents raise their children hoping they would grow up “normal” as affirmed by the conservative society. They look forward to having grand children as a result of their children’s heterosexual union. “Coming out” can shatter such dreams for many parents. Support groups are encouraged to assist these parents who mourn the loss of their children’s perceived heterosexual identity. Parents would often blame themselves, and they find difficulty understanding that it is not merely a choice. We are born this way. The best thing Iranian families can do for their gay children is accepting and loving them with no judgment. There is no valid reason for families to fall apart.
Being gay is more about loving another human being and should never be judged as unnatural. PFLAG, Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays, is a national non-profit organization that aims to provide families with moral support and counseling to address their issues.
Despite all the suffering that gay people worldwide, Iranians as well, have endured due to homophobia, many have overcome these challenges and live happy lives. “It does get better,” as the saying goes.
No one should be made to feel bad about his or her identity. Iranian people have a rich culture of poetry and mysticism that is filled with homoerotic stories and poems. We can look into our own rich literature for validation of gay love. We can stand together and help to liberate one another from the bondage of homophobia hoping someday none of us has to suffer for love.
© Payam Ghassemlou MFT Ph.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (Psychotherapist) in private practice in West Hollywood, California. www.DrPayam.Com
Filed under: Counseling, LGBT, Mindfulness, Psychotherapy | Tags: Coming_out, Counseling, Gay, Homophobia, inner child, Lesbian, LGBT, MFT, Psychotherapy, Spirituality, West Hollywood
LGBT Suicide and the Trauma of Growing Up Gay By Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D.
As a mental health counselor for the past twenty years, I have listened to many painful stories from some of my lesbian and gay patients regarding their upbringing in a homophobic and heterosexist world. Many of my gay and lesbian patients, including a number of bisexual and transgender individuals, have shared with me that as young as age five, they felt different. They were unable to articulate why they felt different, and, at the same time, they were too afraid to talk about it. Many reported that they knew this feeling of being different was related to something forbidden. “It felt like keeping a tormenting secret that I could not even understand,” described one of my gay patients. Others shared with me that this feeling of difference revealed itself in the form of gender nonconformity, which could not be kept secret. Therefore, it made them more vulnerable to homophobic and transphobic mistreatment at school and often at home. They had to cope with a daily assault of shame and humiliation without any support.
The experience of carrying a sense of differentness, because it related to some of the most taboo and despised images in our culture, can leave traumatic scars on one’s psyche. Most school-age children organize their school experience around the notion of not coming across as queer. Any school-age child’s worst nightmare is being called faggot or dyke, which is commonly experienced by many children who do not flow with the mainstream. One gay high school student disclosed to me that, on average, he hears more than twenty homophobic remarks a day. Schools can feel like a scary place for LGBT children, or any child who gets scapegoated as queer. For the most part, LGBT kids do not get any protection from school officials. This is a form of child abuse on a collective level. Mistreatment of LGBT youth and a lack of protection are contributing factors to the issue of LGBT teen suicide.
The feeling of differentness as it relates to being gay or lesbian is too complex for any child to process and make sense of, especially when coupled with external attacks in the form of homophobic, derogatory name calling. Unlike a black child whose parents are typically also black, or a Jewish child with Jewish parents and relatives, the LGBT youth typically does not have gay or lesbian parents or anyone who could mirror his or her experience. In fact, many families tend to blame the mistreated LGBT youngster for not being like everyone else, making the child feel like he or she deserves this mistreatment.
When parents are either unable or unwilling to “feel and see” the world through the eyes of their child and do not provide a reflection that makes the child feel valued, that child can not develop a strong sense of self. Faced with isolation, confusion, humiliation, physical violence, not being valued in the eyes of their parents, and carrying a secret that the youngster connects with something terrible and unthinkable is too stressful for any child to endure – especially when there is no empathic other to help him or her to sort it out. The youngster suffers in silence and might use dissociation to cope. In a worst-case scenario, he or she could commit suicide.
Many LGBT youth who found the courage to open up about their identity issues have experienced rejection from their families and peers. Some families treat such disclosures as bringing shame on the family. They may throw their kid out of the house, which forces the youngster to join the growing population of homeless kids on the street.
The stress of trying to come to terms with a complex matter such as same sex attraction, one’s family’s rejection as a result of finding out about same sex attraction, and becoming victimized through verbal and physical abuse by peers due to being different are contributing factors to the trauma of growing up gay or lesbian. Such traumatic experiences can explain why lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Suicide attempts by LGBT youth are their desperate attempts to escape the traumatic process of growing up queer.
Those of us who survived the trauma of growing up queer without adequate support and managed to reach adulthood can benefit by becoming conscious of our internalized homophobia. When a gay or lesbian youngster experiences humiliation every school day for being different and has no one to protect them, that child can develop internalized homophobia. Internalized homophobia is internalization of shame and hatred that gay and lesbian people were forced to experience. The seed of internalized homophobia is planted at an early age. Having one’s psyche contaminated by the shadow of internalized homophobia can result in low self-esteem and other problems later in life. Bisexual and transgender youngsters can also internalize the hatred they had to endure growing up, and may develop self-hatred.
To not deal with internalized homophobia is to ignore the wreckage of the past. Psychological injuries that were inflicted on LGBT people as result of growing up in a homophobic and heterosexist world need to be addressed. Each time a LGBT youngster was insulted or attacked for being different, such attacks left scars on his or her soul. Such violent mistreatment caused many to develop feelings of inferiority.
Life after the closet needs to include coming out of toxic shame, which means becoming aware of repressed or disassociated memories and feelings around homophobic mistreatment that was experienced growing up. All the rejection and derogatory name-calling one suffered growing up queer can be stored in the psyche in the form of implicit memory: a type of memory that impacts one’s life without one noticing it or consciously knowing its origin. Coming out of toxic shame involves recalling and sharing what it felt like growing up in a world that did not respect one’s identity, fully feeling the injustice of it. Providing empathy and unconditional positive regard for the fact that one has endured many years of confusion, shame, fear, and homophobic mistreatment can give birth to new feelings of pride and honor about one’s LGBT identity. This is an alchemical process that involves transforming painful emotions through love and empathy.
As a community, learning to know ourselves can add vitality to our struggle for freedom. The LGBT liberation movement should not only include fighting for our equal rights, but also working through the injuries that were inflicted on us while growing up queer in a heterosexist world. External changes such as marriage equality or the repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy alone cannot heal us from homophobic mistreatment and rejection we received growing up gay or lesbian. We need to open a new psychological frontier and take our struggle for freedom to a new level. The gay civil rights movement is like a bird that needs two wings to fly, not just one. So far, the political wing has been the main carrier of this movement. By adding psychological healing work as the other wing, the bird of gay liberty can reach even greater heights.
© Dr. Payam Ghassemlou MFT, Ph.D. is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (Psychotherapist), in private practice in West Hollywood, California. http://www.DrPayam.com
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