ReBloom Oral Exam Flashcards
Why do people have different responses to the same trauma? Why does one person fight and another person freeze, for example?
a. The autonomic nervous system has what’s called a “neuroception” – your embodied perception of threat. The “neuroception” sizes up and detects threats automatically, then employs whatever trauma response it senses will best serve to protect you. It might hyper-socialize, flight, fight or freeze, for instance.
b. A variety of factors determines which responses your specific body will employ: your sex (amount of testosterone / estrogen in your body), the perceived size of threat relative to you, your genetics and any inherited trauma or resilency, your specific life history and what this current threat triggers in you, etc.
c. Perhaps offer an example of one person responding one way to a threat due to an above-mentioned factor, and another person responding another way to the same threat due to a difference in sex, life history, etc.
Why does trauma occur, scientifically speaking? And how does it resolve, scientifically speaking?
a. The scientific explanation for trauma has to do with the way the body (the nervous system, specifically) stores embodied emergency responses, even after threat of violation has passed.
b. Humans have three main parts of the brain: reptilian, limbic and neocortex. Our reptilian brain is the part of our brain that connects to the nervous system, and controls our embodied, subconscious responses to threats (fight, flight, freeze and appease responses). The limbic brain is more emotional and relational. The neocortex is more verbal and cognitive. When we experience something that overwhelms our bodies capacity to cope (even if we cognitively think we should be able to cope), our neocortex can go partially offline, while our reptilian brain becomes more activated. We respond from an embodied place to protect ourselves. The challenge is, we don’t often complete that embodied response (of fight, flight, freeze or appease), and instead, before we’re finished moving through our more animal-response to threat, our cognition comes back online and we short-circuit our embodied process. From there, emergency energies of adrenaline and cortisol loop in that part of the body, leading someone to have ongoing hyper or hypo responses to things that may be similar to previous violations.
c. Our emergency responses can be felt in the body, or “somatically”, through sensations and impressions. Our ability to perceive our internal landscape is called “interoception” and we use this “sixth sense” of sorts to feel for incomplete emergency responses then cooperate with them towards completion. This is scientifically how trauma changes, heals and resolves. Not cognitively, but somatically. Once our bodies shift at the nervous system level, our narratives, identities, mindsets, attitudes and behaviors can shift with greater ease.
What if I can’t remember a specific traumatic event? Could I still have trauma? Why and how?
a. There are a lot of reasons why someone might not remember a specific traumatic event, but still experience the symptoms of trauma.
b. Not all trauma is related to a specific instance – shock trauma (an accident, acute violation, etc) or sexual violation, for example. Rather, we are all in the toxic collective soil of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, etc. Trying to thrive in a culture that encourages extraction, exploitation and division is hard on our nervous systems. People living in more marginalized bodies or with more marginalized identities can experience collective trauma even more – and anyone sensitive to our collective field. c. There’s also inherited trauma – trauma passed down to us epigenetically through our parents’ DNA that can leave us responding to life around us as if something happened to us that we didn’t directly experience, but our ancestors did.
d. There’s also the possibility that something traumatic or challenging could’ve happened prior to five years old when the ____ part of our brain that registers memory is less developed. Our births and what’s happening in our mother’s life/body at the time we’re in utero can also leave a strong unconscious imprint on our bodies, and have a lasting effect on our later years.
e. Finally, memory itself is not always objective. The process of memory has entangled with it the need for safety, survival and thriving. If it doesn’t serve our body or nervous system to remember a specific event or experience, our brains can sometimes conveniently bury a memory. Later on, doing mind-body healing work might surface a reconstruction of something that was previously forgotten or erased from our memory. This reconstruction may or may not be “objectively accurate”, but it becomes our to work with, heal and resolve regardless.
f. The book “Trauma & Memory” by Peter Levine is an excellent resource for further learning.
Why is it effective to move slowly, both in the speed of sessions and in terms of how deeply you go into a traumatic memory or pattern? Do we have to go slow? I just want to get this over with. How long will this take?
a. Our bodies have what’s called a Window of Tolerance (Dan Siegel) or Range of Resilience (Brigit Viksnins), within which we’re able to process and metabolize life without moving into a state of overwhelm. If we go too quickly or too deeply into a traumatic difficulty, we can “flood” our nervous system and pop out of our Range of Resilience into hyper or hypo arousal. If there isn’t a wide enough base of support in your body to bring you back into presence, you could loop in those dysregulated sensations of panic, anxiety, overwhelm, grief, shame, dissociation, numbness, goneness, etc. We want to stay within the Range of Resilience, which requires going a bit slower, because this is where we’ll be able to feel and process difficulty most effectively.
b. The nervous system prefers homeostasis, not fast change. Fast change can register as a threat to the body security system that’s trying to protect you. With trauma resolution, we’re trying to resolve unresolved threat responses, so doing so with sensitivity and respect for the body’s security system will be much more effective than trying to push, rush or override feelings of “resistance”.
c. Small incremental changes can shift neurobiology with more sustainability. Instead of the body security system back-lashing against fast or invasive change, titrated healing can allow time for integration and regeneration. The body needs to rest in order to be able to regenerate. Every time we excavate a new layer of trauma, it requires energy to be present and process it. After that expansion, the body responds best with contraction and cocooning. Ultimately, this gentler ebb and flow is the most efficient way to resolve trauma because you’re not experiencing retraumatization in your healing process.
What should someone do if they’re triggered and by themselves?
a. What could you do to create external conditions of relatively more safety, first and foremost? Is there a room that feels more safe, a person you could call for support? Music that calms you? What layers of support can you call in?
b. Next, can you focus a bit on your body? Attune to it and sense what it might need, then follow your embodied needs in a doable way. It might feel supportive, for example, to take a shower, to eat some food, to lay on the floor on your back, to stand up and shake your arms or legs, to get into child’s pose. Listening to your body moment by moment and following your impulses can be supportive.
c. There are also specific moves you can make that can help downregulate a trigger and allow for more cognition to come online. You could lean against a wall with your shoulder, focusing on gravity and naming out loud items and their colors in the space you’re in. This can bring more presence and embodiment. You can press the palms of your hands into your thighs and rotate pressure from one side to another. You can do a face hold, allowing your palms to gently pull down on your cheeks. You can place one hand on your forehead and one on the back of your neck to create a feeling of containment. You can place one hand on your hand and one on the back of your neck to help synch up your vagus nerve and your heart, creating a feeling of emotional embodied safety.
d. Finally, you can orient to your current age, location and full name. Sometimes when we’re triggered we lose a sense of connection to the present time, place and identity. Saying these things out loud, while slowly scanning the space you’re in, can be supportive.
Why does ReBloom use archetypes and how are they connected to post-traumatic growth?
a. For all of time, shared story has been a central means for community healing. Think the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, Indigenous stories around fires. The introduction of “modern”, “scientific” healing should not diminish the ancient age-old technology of story, myth and archetypal resonance.
b. In ReBloom, the 7 archetypes follow the lifecycle of human development, and likewise, the healthy development of a regenerative garden. Each archetype has a “Natural Blueprint of Health” – a core superpower of sorts, and “Traumatic Imprint” – a way that archetype is most susceptible to overwhelming pain or difficulty. When the archetypes are embodying Blueprint, personal and collective thriving is possible. When they’re embodying Imprint, personal and collective trauma spells run the show.
c. As individuals and communities attempting post-traumatic growth, we can find ourselves inside the archetypes and feel as though we have a developmental map for our healing. We can begin at the earliest stages of our development – our Soul Seed or baby self, and its capacity to sense, speak and receive our very personal embodied needs needs, and move slowly through archetype after archetype, until we’re all the way at our most mature capacity to co-create communities and systems abundant with care and resource for all – our Sacred Gardener self.
d. You could name each of the archetypes and how they flow into each other, if you’d like… or be more general. Your call.
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with the Soul Seed Imprint of Neglect, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper: Rigid Self-Sufficiency – Meeting all your needs yourself, not trusting others capacity to show up for you, fear of abandonment, disappointment, being hurt or being let down, not reaching out for support or depending on others, over-holding, fear of needing others—even in healthy ways, fear of vulnerability
b. Hyper: Deviance – Going outside the bounds of the “safe family unit” to get your core needs met, even if the way they get met is unhealthy or unsafe, fear of aloneness or abandonment that moves someone into dysregulated action, escaping into anything that will “meet” them, even unsafe or unhealthy things
c. Hypo: Self-Denial – Neglecting the very parts of yourself that’ve been neglected by others, not knowing your needs or your core self/identity, having a secret sense that you don’t really matter, feeling afraid of centering your needs and experiences, feeling like your needs are too much and too big to care for
d. Path to Blueprint of Worthiness & Receptivity:
i. Regrowing capacity to sense your needs at the body and emotional level
ii. Regrowing capacity to acknowledge, speak or request your needs (to yourself and others)
iii. Regrowing capacity to receive your needs, to let it what’s arriving
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with Gatekeeper Imprints, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper: Impenetrable Boundaries – Walling off entry to any parts of your core self as a defense against being non-consensually taken from, positioning yourself to come out on top of any negotiation, avoiding negotiations all together—deciding you’re a no before giving something a chance so you don’t have to endure the vulnerability or perceived risk of deliberation, self-isolating to avoid navigating interpersonal negotiations
b. Hypo: Flimsy Boundaries – Giving more away than is sustainable or healthy for the nourishment of your body, mind, heart, finances or energy, being blindsided about people taking from you, always getting the short end of the stick, not receiving back in equal proportions to what you put in (with work, relationships, money, sex), defenselessness, no fences or sense of personal space, not feeling, sensing or noticing your own limits, and thus, overriding them or letting them be overridden by others (then perhaps resenting that others didn’t Gatekeep for you)
c. Path to Blueprint of Sovereignty:
i. Penetrating: Saying yes to what’s fully aligned, moving towards what you desire ii. Hanging Back: Saying no to what’s not fully coherent, moving away from what you don’t desire
iii. Letting In: Saying yes and allowing entry to that which turns you on, enjoying the delight of what’s healthy in your space
iv. Keeping Out: Saying no and denying entry to that which diminishes your lifeforce, sensing what will detract from your space (physical, emotional, energetic, mental), and not allowing it to come in
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with Expressionista Imprints, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper: Toxic Defiance – Expressing yourself without regard to the effect your expression has on others—even those who never actually shamed or repressed you, reckless self-expression, vindictive language
b. Hypo: Dimming – Internalizing negative messaging and shame in a way that leads you to shut down your voice, truth, and power, fear of who you really are, your true identity, significantly dimming your authentic volume, evaporating your medicine, depressive frozenness around bringing your heart, gifts, talents or creativity forward
c. Path to Blueprint of Whole Self-Expression
i. Shame resolution – Releasing the projection of others shame onto you, re- associate / re-couple your Blueprint self / identity with goodness, worthiness of belonging, lovability, praise, etc.
ii. Gatekeep from sources of Shame – What safe distance from unsafe behavior does your Expressionista need in order to grow and thrive?
iii. Co-Create Safe Space to Fully Express and Belong – Finding others with like- identities and expressions who encourage and regard your true self is essential to identity development and whole self expression
d. Feel free to give a tiny example of any of the above journey from your life or a client case (kept anonymous)
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with Sage Imprints, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper: Hyper-vigiliance – Not knowing who you can trust, having extreme skepticism, assuming that others are trying to get one over on you, stubbornness about going your own way, controlling situations and relationships, playing emotional games with others in order to keep the upper hand, doing extreme case-building about what’s going on, being hyper-guarded, isolating out of fear
b. Hypo: Confusion & Following – Having blind trust or a sense of naivety, looking to others for validation, approval or direction, having crippling self-doubt, lacking in personal identity, seeming disconnected from reality, having trouble knowing what’s going on, feeling a big draw to charismatic leaders, desiring to be saved by someone who knows what’s going on
c. Path to Blueprint of Clarity and Choice:
i. Seeing, sensing, feeling and believing their own reality. A firming up of their ability to perceive what’s true from the inside out and bottom up, and receive affirmation of their truth, while also being able to hear other perspectives. A sense of sovereignty around their perceived reality, where they can both let things in and keep things out, while holding solid ground inside themselves.
ii. Embodying truth-aligned leadership. Having coherence between their sense of reality, values and actions. Being able to direct the other parts of themselves (Gatekeeper, Groundskeeper, etc.) to help them bring their visions into reality.
iii. A willingness to make hard choices for the sake of coherence. A feeling that they have enough foundational support inside themselves and their own lives (their finances, friends, family, community, etc) to be fully honest and integral in their lives.
d. Feel free to give a tiny example of any of the above journey from your life or a client case (kept anonymous)
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with Groundskeeper Imprints, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper – Outbursts or Addiction: Outbursts of anger, aggression or frustration, self- harming, extreme highs and lows, temper tantrums, recklessness, speed, addictions to sex, uppers, work, dysfunctional relationships, controlling or obsessing over food or body image, bullying, carelessness, moving towards chaos/danger, bypassing pain and insisting on only positive perspectives
b. Hypo – Numbing or Addiction: Addictions to food, alcohol, cannabis, prescription or non-prescription drugs, technology or video games, depression, chronic illness, chronic pain, hiding out inside safe environments, relationships, people or jobs for a sense of security, even if they’re not aligned, cycles of internalized violence
c. Path to Blueprint
i. Connection and co-regulation to replace dysregulated habits when overwhelm sets in. (Connection is the antidote to addiction.)
ii. Doable, predictable rhythms of self-care and stabilization to build a momentum of health and vitality. (Star charts for fertile grounds, baby.)
iii. Getting safe distance from unsafe behavior to give the body, heart, soul time to heal and recover, regain cognitive and creative capacity.
iv. Completing incomplete trauma responses in a body-based way can increase capacity for stability, predictability, sound decision-making, etc. and can be incredibly helpful for those who have big embodied challenges. Touch-based trauma resolution can be a really good move.
d. Feel free to give a tiny example of any of the above journey from your life or a client case (kept anonymous)
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with Pollinator Imprints, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper – Ride-or-Die: Clinging to who you have even if they’re unhealthy or not aligned, exclusivity, hazing for entry, us against them mentality, lacking compassion for people outside your group, fear of outside threats, feeling only safe in the pack, being a part of gangs, extreme loyalties, cults.
b. Hypo – In-It-Alone: Depression, relational collapse, self-imposed isolation or alienation, existential crises, perpetual nomad, commitment-phobe, feeling unsafe in spaces with others, being chronically Othered, deep feeling of being an outsider, hopelessness around belonging, closeted, endless search for your people, making do without others, solitary living, work without connection to others
c. Path to Blueprint
i. Reconnecting to land, language and lineage (a foundation for Intimate Belonging)
ii. Reconnecting to a circle of belonging with others like you, and feeling comfortable cross-pollinating with others unlike you: cultivating regular community care that extends to the larger community when desired
iii. Reconnecting to authentic emergent sensuality and sexuality – the pleasures
and turn ons of life
d. Feel free to give a tiny example of any of the above journey from your life or a client case (kept anonymous)
What are some signs that a client might be struggling with Sacred Gardener Imprints, and what’s the path back to Blueprint?
a. Hyper – Supremacy: Pointing the violence of the system downward or outward, safety by externalizing and using the force-energy of the system on others, embodying the energies of force, violence, power-over, extraction or manipulation to try to keep or gain control, disrupting the natural abundance and sustainability of a people, place, environment or culture for the sake of your own group’s profit, proliferating ideologies and infrastructures that incarcerate or take from indigenous bodies, land and souls, denying of the sacred rights of all living things, appropriating (stealing) others’ land, culture, language or ways for your own profit or gain
b. Hypo – Assimilation: Pointing the violence of the system inward, safety by internalizing the forces of colonization, buying into false characterizations about the not-enoughness of your character, believing that if you contribute better to the toxicity of the system that’s colonized you, you’ll finally have enough, get free, win the game, disconnecting from or denying your roots—your body, soul, spirit, land, lineage or original language, abiding to the hustle that erases your right-sizeness and right- relationship to Life, experiencing ongoing extraction of your natural gifts and resources, feeling deep shame, grief and regret around the loss of your indigeneity (and the way you’ve perhaps contributed to that loss in others, as well) that freezes your capacity to re-member right relations
c. Path to Blueprint
I. Identifying the programming of systems of oppression: having them named and begin to see and face the ways they live inside you… Where have you assimilated to systems of harm? Where are you upholding systems of harm?
ii. Listening to and learning with those who are most marginalized and have therefore been examining systems of oppression the longest and most in-depth. iii. Pray to become a co-creator, one who collaborates with the preciousness of all living things, rather than extracting from, forcing or dominating. In your community. In your business. In your family. With your body and sexuality. In our world.
iv. Move from power-over to power-with, top-down to circular ways of growing,
living and sharing with one another and all of Life.
d. Feel free to give a tiny example of any of the above journey from your life or a client case (kept anonymous)
What’s the basic physiological attachment sequence, and how do you work with someone who’s having difficulties around it?
a. The basic physiological attachment sequence is:
i. To be able to feel a need at the body level (for food, sleep, connection, movement, etc)…
ii. To make a sound about or reach for your need (grunt, cry, reach out, whine, flirt with your face, etc.)…
iii. To receive your need (be met by another who accurately responds to your verbal or physical cue, and then rest into the experience of having what you need, of being met)…
iv. To trust that the meeting of your need is readily available to you, so you can let go for now (feeling secure in detaching for some time before reattaching again, a dance between co-regulation and self-regulation).
b. When you’re working with someone who’s struggling with attachment, it helps to identify where the sequence is most interrupted and the trauma response that takes hold during that interruption (do they fight, flight, freeze, hypersocialize at this particular threshold…?)
c. It also helps to identify the age(s) at which this attachment rupture most acutely occured
d. From there, call in a valiant resource or divine parentage to meet that age or unique attachment trauma threshold… helping to repair the rupture by completing an incomplete trauma response with the arrival of doable, reliable connection / co- regulation
e. Attachment patterns tend to take a number of repetitions of connecting to Blueprint sequencing to fully repair… allow yourself to go slowly with your clients, and share that there are often layers to attachment trauma, and we can do one small layer at a time
If someone’s spinning in hyper, how would you meet them in the moment to grow regulation and capacity, then eventually transform the trigger?
a. First, meet the speed your client’s in (with your tone of voice, your vocal pace), without actually going into hyper yourself (while staying connected to your roots, your resources, your inner-stability)
b. Invite your client to pendulate to resource or layers of support that add a bit more stabilization, neutrality or depth and width (hyper goes in and up, regulation down and out)
c. Get curious how this more regulated physiology might now wish to interact with the topic that was triggering the hyper-arousal… How might this resource or more resourced state support your client in titrating back into activation?
d. As you titrate back in, use the ABCs to help your client harmonize with their physiology, incomplete instincts and impulses
e. Perhaps if it’s appropriate, call in valiant resources to help your client embody incomplete hyper even more, with more support
f. Allow your client to harmonize with their incomplete emergency response and guide them towards the possibility of completion, success or winning with their emergency response
g. Allow your client’s body time to slowly discharge hyper energies, witnessing waves of information moving through them
h. Cocoon and digest the experience together, making new meaning of what just happened
