The Oldest Story

 

 

July 2020

(NOTE: If you have not yet read the previous parts of this series, they can also be found on this page. Part 3 can be read here). 

Dominance is a nightmare. It is founded in a dysregulation and distortion of our neurobiological, psychological, and spiritual design as human beings. It perpetuates disconnection when the very thing we are most fundamentally wired up to do is to connect.

So how do we white folks collectively reorient towards a better way of being? How do we restore our capacity for connection?

Riane Eisler, who articulated the concept of Dominance in her paradigm-shifting work, “The Chalice and the Blade,” identified a second primary way that we organise as humans. She called it Partnership: a cultural system in which power arises through the bonds of mutual benefit. In this system, power is negotiated via connection. According to Eisler’s research, Partnership systems have predominated throughout human history; it is only in the past 3,000 years that Dominance has become widespread on the human scene, and it is only since the colonisation of the formerly indigenous nations of Europe by the Romans (and then, of course the colonisation of much of the rest of the world by the Europeans) that it has taken such a hold in what we now call “the West.”

Partnership is profoundly resonant with our neurobiological design. Our human neurobiology primes us to develop our sense of self and relationship within an attuned matrix of embodied connection.[1] It is this very matrix that allows us to attach to our caregivers and our cultures; that supports our brains and bodies to fully and robustly develop; and which allows us to have authentic, fulfilling and meaningful relationships with others. Along with other mammals, our Nervous System is designed to function in this state of Social Engagement (see Stephen Porges’ “Polyvagal Theory”) most of the time. States of defensive activation are meant to last only for short periods – just long enough to save our lives.  Only in Social Engagement can we rest and restore our bodies, create new memories, and connect empathetically with others.

I believe that we white-bodied people can invoke this notion of Partnership, and the neurobiology that supports it, as an anchoring framework for a restored cultural somatics. In proposing this, I want to emphasise that I don’t believe that Partnership was “invented” by Eisler, or that white people will be blazing new trails by adopting it. The benefit of Eisler’s work is that she articulates a concept that is very ancient (our human connectedness to the world and to the beings we share it with is at the heart of many if not all indigenous traditions) in a way that brings it (restores it?) into the European language, conceptual framework, and lineage. I would say the same for Neuroscience. Both are telling an old, familiar story of humanity – possibly the oldest story in existence – only this time using words and concepts that can be integrated within the psyche of contemporary Europe and her diaspora without appropriating from other lineages.

Having an anchoring framework, however, is not enough. Dominance is sneaky, and it is entirely possible to be speaking and believing Partnership while embodying and enacting something very different. And so, I believe that the very first, critical step we can take to move away from Dominance is to start to notice our bodies’ sensory experiences and responses to the world on a moment-by-moment basis. And this is where the rubber really hits the road, because when we do this, many of us will likely discover an entire universe of experience, memory, and unconscious patterning that we never even knew existed. This could be delightful and empowering, or like the lid has been taken off a very large can of worms. Likely both. Either way, in order to keep our collective focus in the somatic realm long enough to pull out the roots of Dominance that are embedded there, we need more than concepts – we need some sensory, experiential guideposts. We need some landmarks in the cultural somatic landscape of Partnership.

The landmarks I will describe here are drawn from my training and lineage in somatic psychology. This is a lineage with diverse cultural origins and applications, both white-identified and Black/Indigenous/People of Colour (BIPOC). Some of these same landmarks and practices are being engaged for healing in BIPOC communities; they are no way unique to the white-bodied context. However, I feel confident to recommend them here, for white-bodied people, because I have seen first-hand their  restorative impacts in my work as a somatic and trauma-oriented psychotherapist and group facilitator working with mostly white-bodied folks in the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK. I have come to perceive that these are the key somatic skills which, when developed, enable my white-bodied clients to safely integrate the intensity of personal trauma and restore their capacity for connection.

Developing these skills – and unwinding the pain of past experience – is never a linear or predictable process; it is an intensely personal journey with many turns in the road and detours along the way. However, I believe that these skills themselves are effective guideposts for the cultural somatic reorientation we white-identified folk as a whole are attempting to make. I believe that they are the very same skills we require as a collective to process a very deep well of dysregulation, and to turn the tides towards a more connection-oriented future.

 

 

The Story of Interbeing as Told by the Body

So, what does Partnership feel like? How does it live in our bodies and our cultural somas?

It begins by kindling a sense of safety in our bodies. This is not about creating safety in the outer world – that we cannot control. Kindling safety within ourselves involves noticing the sensory cues that tell us the Nervous System has become mobilised for defence and using simple, body-based practices that help our brains and bodies to relax and return to a state that is available for connection. I call this establishing “Somatic Safety” (you can find resources on Somatic Safety here or here). This is not always possible, of course – there are some situations of very real danger (experiencing an assault, for example) in which the Nervous System will unavoidably take the reins for a period of time. But on a day-to-day basis, it can be extremely powerful – even paradigm-shifting – for many people to start to build a more conscious and satisfying relationship with their Nervous System, and in some cases, to gain access to states of calm connection they may never have experienced.

We restore our relationship to sensation. Once we’ve created internal pathways to Somatic Safety, our bodies become able to “hold” an increasingly wide range of sensory experience without reacting to it (with mind or body). This “holding” is not like “holding your breath.” It’s more like how a parent might hold a newborn baby. It is a porous inner state of receptivity, of unconditional presence with whatever sensory experience is arising. Many of us must consciously work to expand the range of both positive and challenging sensations we can allow to happen within our bodies – and of course, to notice when an experience is triggering a defensive Nervous System pattern and go back to the basics of re-establishing Somatic Safety (it is no use trying to “hold” sensation in a body that is mobilised for defence, it will only increase the trigger). And repeat.

This back-and-forth between states of intensity (sensation) and restoration (Somatic Safety) is called titration. Over time and many repetitions, it creates a wider “window of tolerance” within ourselves, which enables us to receive and connect with more of our life experiences. Take a moment and drink in that possibility. A further gift we receive when we get really good at holding sensation is that we discover
sensations shift and change of their own accord, opening up and informing us with new, often unexpected, information about ourselves and the world around us.

We reconnect to the Inner Witness. The part of the brain immediately behind the forehead, the
Prefrontal Cortex, gives rise to some of our most precious human abilities (including empathy, but that’s for another article). One of the key things it enables us to do is notice and reflect on what’s happening inside us – both sensory and cognitive – and to make choices about what action to take. It’s like having a clutch that allows us to shift gears internally; to notice, for example, the early signs of Nervous System activation (an increased heart rate, or shallow breathing) and to take the necessary steps (such as shaking out the body, or taking a pause in the conversation) to return to Somatic Safety. Or, to notice an arising sensation and choose to hold it and stay curious rather than react.

When the Nervous System mobilises for defence, one of the first things that happens is that this Prefrontal area shuts down. By decreasing the reactivity of the Nervous System (by widening our window of tolerance), we regain access to this part of our brain and our consciousness. This has critical implications for our ability to connect with our fellow humans – particularly across difference – in a way that does not unconsciously impose Dominance-oriented interpretations or categories on them (or on ourselves). Having the capacity to internally witness ourselves allows us to “mind the gap”: to hold at all times internal “space” for the possibility that the sensate responses we are having in our bodies are not necessarily representative of how other people and the world actually are.

The Inner Witness allows us to be 100% in connection with our sensory and cognitive experience of the world
and other people while withholding the violence of (even subtly) imposing our interpretations, reactions, or past experiences onto them. It allows us to “see” our implicit/conditioned somatic responses as they arise and to instead choose more authentic and connective relational moves.

We create new rituals. Once a critical mass of people are embodying themselves in these ways, our cultural values and identity will radically change. We will start to feel connected to our fellow human and non-human beings in an ever-shifting, emergent way that utterly defies Dominance-based logic. We will start to experience a completely different kind of power arising from that very connectedness itself: a self-evident, meaningful kind of power that doesn’t need to do anything to anybody else in order to exist. This might at times be strange or overwhelming. It might awaken strong feelings in acknowledgment of what we lost – of what we destroyed – in the name of Dominance. At this point, we need to hold on to the tools and practices we have collected so far, so that we do not revert, in fear, to our previous ways. And, we need to develop new personal and cultural practices that link consciousness to sensation, power to connection in every aspect of our lives, in order to support us to sustain our capacity for Partnership into the future.

Some of these practices will involve reclaiming our capacity to express life experience with and through the body and voice. Our bodies and our voices are designed to help us hold and move our sensory experience of life. We are not meant to bottle it all up inside. Imagine, for example, the way joyfulness feels in your body. Perhaps your chest naturally lifts and expands, or your arms outstretch, or your voice wants to sing, or whatever else happens for you. Similarly, the feeling of great sadness can invoke its own range of movements and sounds. Our bodies and voices are designed to support our partnership with sensation and hence, with our life experiences and with each other. When we restrict our sound and our movement, our song and our dance, our capacity to feel and connect with life diminishes; by restoring them, we can expand the range of feeling – and hence, connection – we are able to have.

Some of these practices will involve connecting to Nature. The language of sensation, movement, and vocal sound that our bodies speak is our shared language with Nature. The rustling of a tree’s waxy leaves, the song of a bird, these things touch us and convey information to us via our sensory circuits. Not “information” in the way we (from our Dominance-based perspective) have come to understand the word, but as a kind of un-worded meaningful-ness that somehow touches, informs, and changes us when we encounter it. We are primed for exactly this kind of information; our bodymind and spirit thirst for it. By building practices that link us to Nature, our sensory systems will integrate all the more deeply, and we will access the cyclical blueprints for culture and community that it continuously makes available to us.

Some of these practices will involve restoring our engagement with difference and conflict. Only in Domination is difference something to be feared. Only in Domination does difference lead to yet another trip around the Drama Triangle, to the inevitability of lost connection, to (even subtle) acts of violence. The cultural soma of Partnership, rooted as it is in unconditional presence and Inner Witnessing, approaches difference as simply another shade or texture of information to be greeted and received. This does not mean that Partnership is without boundaries or difference; healthy and authentic boundaries support connection, support the enrichment of life, whereas the reactive defence of limited relational categories destroys it. Residing in a connected internal space will support us to communicate and receive boundaries and difference in a more respectful and co-creative way, which will allow the full truth and potential of any interaction to be revealed.

Some of these practices will involve grief-tending. Restoring our sensory relationship to the world and ourselves does not mean that we will walk around in a state of bliss every day. Many of the sensory experiences we have will feel challenging, will evoke infinite shades of grief, outrage, as well as joy and everything else. Particularly in this transitional moment, when so much damage and loss has not been fully felt or integrated (particularly by white-bodied people, as per this series), creating or learning practices to collectively feel, titrate, express, and integrate painful feelings will support us to welcome and fully receive the gifts of what we might call suffering (integrity and accountability, joy and restoration, and of course, connection) – which is an intimate and indispensable part of life – within the sphere of our collective reality.

 

Conclusion

Although I have presented these guideposts as if they happen one at a time, it is more often the case that they co-arise as folks learn to safely and fully connect with their somatic experience of themselves and their culture. This process is often highly non-linear, deeply personal as well as collective, and at times may require individual support (as from a somatic psychotherapist, bodywork practitioner, or other experienced healer) alongside group practices like Body-Informed Leadership. And, in addition to the guideposts I have listed here, there are undoubtedly countless other key features in the cultural somatic landscape of Partnership – relevant to white-bodied people and to BIPOC alike – which I hope that we can explore together.

I believe that our human story is one of distinct but inter-woven strands. In this series of articles, I have teased out one thread of this bigger story – the cultural somatic lineage which gave rise to white supremacy – so that people who identify as white can better understand and acknowledge where we have come from and the often invisible dynamics which shape us, and to hold ourselves accountable for the damage we as a collective have caused. I also hope this series will support us to hold ourselves deeply accountable to the cultural somatic healing and restoration that I believe we are capable of, and which must accompany broader systemic change. And finally, I hope that it offers some cultural somatic reference points to support the restoration of relationship with our BIPOC comrades, and with the beautiful braid of life we are all a part of.

[1] This phenomenon is well researched in the fields of infant attachment and interpersonal neurobiology.

 

Breaking the Trance

July 2020

The emergent field of Cultural Somatics[1] looks at how particular mind-body states (such as defensive Nervous System activation, dissociation, or calm presence) are encouraged – even embodied – by human cultures. And conversely, it looks at the way that individual mind-body states generate or reinforce those very cultures that perpetuate them.

To briefly illustrate what this means:

If my culture does not provide opportunities and support to calm my Nervous System – and simultaneously puts me in situations that overwhelm my Nervous System – I will most likely develop a dysregulated Nervous System. This will impact my mind, body, and actions in ways that might be typical of my culture (as other people sharing my context and life experiences will be impacted in similar or related ways). On the flip side, if I myself have a dysregulated Nervous System, then I will engage in behaviours and relational patterns that express this (perhaps favouring extremely high- or low- intensity interactions or avoiding certain types of relational intimacy or connection). If many people with similar dysregulation hang out together over time, we will create a culture that enables or accommodates our dysregulation. 

Each of these scenarios might give rise to the other, and/or be mutually-reinforcing. This interrelationship is called “cultural somatics.”

Body-Informed Leadership is particularly interested in how, by making both cultural changes and individual changes, we can shift the whole equation in the West. We can transform our cultures to support more balanced and life-affirming ways of inhabiting our neurobiology, and we can integrate the paradigms and practices that shift our neurobiology so that we become capable of more balanced and life-affirming cultures.

In this series, I foreground perspectives about the white “cultural soma” (I use this phrase to refer to the culture-body interface of a particular group of people, whether a family, a community, etc) and how I believe it has evolved to generate the toxic phenomenon of white supremacy. My hope is that by knowing ourselves better, we will be better equipped to truly and deeply release the distortions of our past, to hold ourselves more accountable, and to become more able – at the cultural somatic level – to contribute to a better human future in relationship to our fellow human and non-human beings.

In Part 2, I described some of the cultural somatic wounding that I believe is carried by white-bodied people of European descent. In this current writing, I’d like to spend just a little bit more time looking at the damaged cultural soma I believe we have evolved as a result of that wounding.

Please note that I use “we” at many points to bring my white-bodied readers along with me on an experiential journey. This may feel uncomfortable at times, as you may not always identify or agree with what I describe. However, I invite you to try on what it’s like to include yourself in the “we” – to find and claim the cultural soma I describe within yourself and the groups you are a part of. Because although it may not be true for all of us all of the time, it is ours to heal.

And so in that spirit, if you are willing, let us inhabit this “white-body cultural soma” together. Let us name and feel its features so that we can better notice when it becomes active within our bodies and our cultures and break the trance that binds us to it.

 

White Bodies and Domination

To understand the white cultural soma at this moment in time, we must understand a disease called Domination.[2]Domination is something that can (and does) infect human bodies and cultures of all kinds. It involves the conscious or unconscious belief that power is something that must be taken and sustained by force, or the threat of force. That for one to be powerful another must be less so. It involves a somatics of dysregulation in the Nervous System, and personal and cultural rituals that separate body from mind, consciousness from sensation. It manifests in social systems that privilege some and oppress others. It is not in any way intrinsic to white bodies and white cultures; however (and this is a BIG “but”), it has been the defining motif of the cultures (and cultural somas) that white-bodied people have embodied, expressed, imposed, and defended for the past several thousands of years.

I believe that Domination is a disorder which took root under the severely compromised cultural and somatic
conditions I described in Part 2 of this series, and which has since perpetuated itself within the individual and cultural bodies of its host. It has become so deeply ingrained into white bodies, minds, and cultures that it now (to many of us) simply feels “normal.” We look at ourselves and our social systems and we know something is wrong – we may even resist or act to dismantle the status quo – but when we try to find the root cause of the suffering we seem to perpetuate we can’t quite put our finger on what exactly it is.

 

The Story of Separation as Told by the Body

So, what does Domination feel like? How does it live in our bodies and our cultural somas?

It begins with a bodily mobilisation towards defence. Our Nervous Systems are designed to radically transform our brains and bodies depending on whether they perceive safety or danger in the environment. When, due to inherited trauma, the Nervous System is consistently flooded by danger signals, we lose the capacity to be in the restful, connected state of perceived safety. We become chronically hyper- or hypo- activated. This means states of anxiety, angry adrenalized outbursts, or lethargy, dissociation, and depression. We may alternate endlessly between all of the above. Over thousands of years and across millions of bodies, once we have collectively forgotten that there ever existed another way of being within ourselves, this kind of activation takes on its own logic. It writes the script for how we see and understand ourselves, each other, and the world. It gives rise to our sense of power, our social organising and social rituals. It becomes culture.

We develop a fear of sensation. When our bodies are the site of chronic dysregulation, they are very painful places to spend time. Sensation, the body’s messenger, could signal yet another round of dysregulated activation or inescapable lethargy. Or – perhaps even worse – it could signal a painful memory of whatever trauma short-circuited our Nervous System (or more likely, our distant ancestor’s Nervous System) to begin with. When humans don’t fully feel, process and integrate painful experiences they are literally stored away in the body and passed along through the generations until they can be healed; however, a chronically activated Nervous System will block the healing process from happening.[3]

And so it can be that when we inherit unprocessed trauma along with chronic Nervous System activation we are impelled to unknowingly run from the ghosts of the past within our own bodies. We unconsciously develop defences and barriers within ourselves and learn to avoid or control our body’s sensory experience so that it cannot overwhelm us. We start to deeply fear it – along with anything that represents or relates to it (in the European lineage, this fear often constellates around nature, and things feminine/female). Once again, over thousands of years and across millions of bodies, this becomes culture.

We disconnect. True connection – connection with ourselves, with other people, with the world around us – is an intimately sensory experience. It is perhaps the most precious gift of being human, to receive the many textures and shades of feeling evoked within us by our life experiences and relationships. Think of how you might feel touched when someone you love makes a characteristic movement of their body, or a characteristic inflection of their voice. Or how you might be somehow informed by the delicacy of a moth’s wing, feeling the papery tickle of its light, chaotic movements. This is the invisible, sensory web that connects us to our fellow beings. When the realm of sensation goes off-limits, we lose this capacity to feel connected to the world around us. And once again, over thousands of years and across millions of bodies, this becomes culture.

We find substitutes, we create inequality. When sensory “connection” channels are off-limits, we naturally look for alternative means of navigating the world around us. We may find we require a few handy categories to make sense of it all – because without the ability to sense and feel connection, we must find external signposts with which to carry out our lives. This is an inherently fragile navigational system. It’s like losing a compass and so having to navigate by a handful of sketchy – even invented – landmarks.

And it doesn’t help that we have our hyper- or hypo- activated Nervous Systems in the background, giving us suggestions about other people and the nature of things. Its dysregulated perspective – being obsessively oriented towards defence – resonates most strongly with social categories involving the degree of threat posed by others to one’s physical survival. These categories are inherently imbalanced; they involve people’s perceived likelihood of overpowering or being overpowered by oneself (see my description of Karpman’s “Drama Triangle” in “Body-Informed Leadership: A Somatic Allyship Practice”). There is no meeting in the middle. And if we add in the fear of the feminine and of nature (which in the European lineage symbolise the connection to the sensate, to the body) we have the perfect somatic recipe for the Dominance formula as it plays out today on the world stage today via patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy.[4]

We protect our fragile sense of order with violence. Somehow we know that our categories don’t make sense. Somehow we know that there used to be a better way to navigate the world. Sometimes, whether because we meet a person or have an experience that does not fit our categories, or because we are actively challenged by those who disagree with them, we feel disoriented within the system we ourselves have created. And this disorientation exposes us to the very thing we are unconsciously avoiding at all costs. The unknown will always bring us back to our oldest and most wired-in method for coming into relationship with life: sensation. Our sensory systems are the only part of us capable of truly greeting and receiving the unknown. Despite millennia of suppression, our sensory systems still call to us, still beckon from the cracks between the stereotypes we hold on to.

For example, I might not know what gender that person is, but I know that I feel settled and soft when I am around them. This allows me to feel connected to them, despite not having a category to frame them with.

Depending on the degree of activation within a person’s body, and depending on the extent to which the social systems around them entrench Dominance, this could either be a moment of healing and restored connection … or a cue for the distorted logic of buried pain to reassert itself with a vengeance and impose its categories even more strongly onto the world. In this case force and even violence (whether enacted ourselves or projected onto others when we turn ourselves into victims) feels necessary. Feels appropriate, in order to re-establish the familiar (im)balance we’ve been habituated to recognise as “normal.”

Remember, our Nervous Systems are telling us we are in mortal danger against which we must fight or submit. And there is perhaps even a breath of relief when the world, for just a moment, seems to obey the fragile order we’ve learned to bend it into.

 

Closing This Chapter

The cultural soma I have described is not inhabited 100% of the time by 100% of white-identified people. Many of us are very loving, and have resourcing practices (such as song, dance, or nature connection) that enhance our Somatic Safety and open us naturally to sensation and connection. Many of us enjoy the ambiguities and mysteries of life and are capable of relating authentically across difference. There are also broad differences in the way that this cultural soma is inhabited by genderqueer, transgender, female and male people.

I am not proposing this description as a one-size-fits-all formula; however, I do believe that it is crucial that we understand the formula – more than understand it, that we can feel it and own it whenever and wherever it comes alive in our bodies and our cultures. This way, together, and in relationship to our fellow human and non-human beings, we can regenerate what has become so badly distorted.

Now, I invite you to take a moment to breathe, and look gently around the space you are in. Notice what sensations are present in your body, what thoughts are in your mind, after reading these words I have shared. Perhaps there is grief, perhaps there is anger, apathy, or something else. Perhaps my writing has struck a chord, or perhaps you disagree with it entirely. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to feel about these ideas I have proposed, but whatever it is that you do feel, please acknowledge it, even only to yourself. Don’t just skim it over and carry on with your day. Because – and this I say specifically to my white-bodied readers – that is the only way to authentically engage with this story, and with this topic in a good way that will bring about change.

And then please join me for the final instalment of this series, which I hope will offer a ray of hope: The Oldest Story.

 

[1] I give thanks and credit for this excellent term to Resmaa Menakem and Tadaaki Hozumi

[2] I give thanks and credit to Riane Eisler for her portrayal of Domination in her landmark book “The Chalice and the Blade”.

[3] These phenomena are well researched in the fields of epigenetics, somatic trauma healing (Somatic Experiencing or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy), interpersonal neurobiology, and infant attachment.

[4] I want to emphasise that I am not suggesting that people with PTSD are personally “to blame” for white supremacy. What I am pointing to – and I hope that this is already obvious – are the cultural patterns that have evolved as a result of many people having PTSD and forming actions and beliefs from that place.