But then when you turned fully around I had a familiar feeling of anxiety in my throat. It just didn't feel good. With practice, Sam began to notice how external factors influenced his arousal and shifts he could make to stay in his window of tolerance--for instance, breathing more deeply or breaking eye contact. The lesson for him was that he was being influenced by others all the time, in ways that were both regulating and not. In our sessions, we talked about ways I could be with him that would support his sense of stability and window of tolerance. A technical term for this is inter-relational psychobiological regulation--the way our relationships with other people can help us regulate our arousal. When we're in safe, attuned contact with other people, we can more easily access our social engagement system and thereby coregulate each other's arousal. This takes place though nonverbal cues such as making or breaking eye contact, finding an optimal distance between our bodies, and listening to the tone in one another's voices. Stand up and position yourself as you normally would. Can you feel the tension in your body? People always go after those who are tense. In order to avoid such `attacks,' you should relax. To do this, stand with your legs a little further apart than usual, and then hold your right gluteal muscle with your hand, as in the illustration. If it remains slightly tense, move your legs even further apart, untilthe glutealmuscle is relaxed. The gluteal muscle must be relaxed - like in martial arts - otherwise you're weakened and can be overcome by anyone. When the buttocks are tensed, the sciatic nerve - one of the energy pathways - is also pinched. Also, pay attention to how your solar plexus changes; You're welcome to return to standing `normally' again in order to note the difference, or to repeat the sequence in front of a mirror. The great green pine stands are now orange and dead, and this is due to beetle-kill, which are pine trees that have died because a particular beetle has come in and attacked them. Segments of mountains are incredibly ugly and will burn and burn, but that is another story.

A small beauty that has come from this catastrophe, though, is that beetle-kill pinewood is gorgeous. When you cut down the dead tree and mill it, the resulting wood is pine colored with swirls of gray-blue throughout as a result of the damage the beetle left behind. Carpenters now use this wood for furniture and boxes. And I heard that two Benedictine nuns were making coffins out of this particular wood; I found it sweetly ironic that the trees' carcasses were going to be used to hold ours. I wanted to go see, so I drove up to the Wyoming-Colorado border because there's a large community of Benedictine nuns up north of where I live, who, as they said when I called, celebrate the joy of living by facing the practical reality of dying. When Sisters Maria Josepha and Maria Johanna met me at the door of a shed on a cold wintry day to show me a coffin they were working on, I was at first too charmed by their appearance to notice the coffin they were pointing at. These two nuns were smiling wildly and kept breaking out in laughter. Family Members and Family Relationships (Tips 491-498) Stroke affects family relationships too. Psychologists, neurologists, stroke medical and rehabilitation team members all agree that stroke profoundly impacts family dynamics. Suddenly, you become responsible for helping your loved one during stroke recovery while simultaneously carrying on with normal, routine activities and chores. If you are employed, dreams of early retirement may have vanished. While your mate is working at improving, you may be faced with handling family finances, shopping, watching children (if they're still at home), cooking, cleaning, washing and putting away laundry, and keeping on top of home maintenance. This stressful situation is further complicated by your concern for your loved one's health and welfare, and your stamina regarding the long, healing process required for stroke recovery. You may hear remarks like, It will take time to heal or In time, your loved one may improve or your stroke survivor/loved one might say, Give me time to figure this out on my own! In your world, time may be in very short supply. Your family dynamics and marriage have changed. In this way one hormone produced by a single gland can have a wide variety of different effects throughout the body. This is similar to how Chinese medicine teaches that the Spleen keeps blood in the vessels, allows you to think clearly, creates saliva, and ensures transformation and transportation.

The serotonin in our brain is not limited to vomiting, however, but is also integral to what we call obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This condition is considered a brain disorder in Western medicine but the Chinese have always considered it a problem of digestion. The sayings to `ruminate on', to `digest', to `chew over' are all digestive phrases that are equally applicable to thinking; This etymological connection is not coincidence: in Chinese medicine the Spleen/pancreas is the source of the Qi that enables us to think clearly. Over-thinking, worry and even excessive study are processes that adversely affect our guts. The reason why IBS sufferers appear to be neurotic worriers is because it is another manifestation of the same disease: the serotonin disturbance that is causing their harried bowels is also depleting their ability to think clearly. Their `neurosis' is often seen as a problem to general practitioners, but it would be more helpful to see it as another symptom of their gut pathology. OCD is an example of a problem of thinking that presents with repetitive behaviour and worrying. And maybe we don't feel that we deserved to survive. So maybe we shouldn't be safe now. The thoughts are coming thick and fast, like things that I've always known are pushing themselves into consciousness. Each one of these thoughts could be expounded in its own session. Because then I'll forget the traumatised parts. I'll ignore them again. They need to keep me feeling unsafe so that I don't forget them. What I've just said sounds terribly, terribly crazy. I pinch a look upwards at her face, but she's just looking steadily back at me, furrows in her brow. I take a deep breath and press on. Don't lie to me. I know you're cheating on me.

Tell me the truth, Alex's voice is getting louder. Geez, Alex, I left early so that I could stop and get my driver's license renewed. I told you last week that it had expired. Let me see your new license, Alex demands. No, that's ridiculous. I'm not showing you my license. If you don't believe me, that's your problem, Madeline starts to walk past him. Alex grabs her by the arm and pushes her against the wall. As I sat in class each day, admiring my mom's handiwork, the realization set in that there were not going to be any cards in that box for me. Not even one. It was going to be very embarrassing to be the only kid in the class without even one card. I came up with the perfect solution to this problem. My mom had bought me a box of valentines to be given to each kid in the class. My secret plan was to write them all out to myself, using different handwriting for each one. No one would ever suspect! After I filled out all the cards, I snuck them into that box over several days, using great caution so no one saw me put them in there. Once the cards were successfully housed in the box, I felt quite smug, knowing I would receive thirty-five cards on Valentine's Day. Finally, the big day arrived. Convey Your Intentions For this reason, robots may try to spread false information about you or your work, or they may not be able to provide you with the information you need to move forward correctly.

The more you tell others what you want to accomplish and believe in verbal or written ways, the more difficult it will be for the manipulator to convince others that it will be against you intentionally or unintentionally. What you portray is your identity, not an explanation provided by the manipulator. For this reason, the more you witness, the better the witness, and always back up and protect your records. Call It as If You Saw It Even if they are just afraid of failure, one of the reasons why robots perform so poorly is because they honestly think they can do it without being caught. They insist on their conceit and convince themselves that they are too proficient in the system and personnel to discover its solutions. They insist that they can still be lucky enough to continue to escape it because they have never encountered any consequences. Eliminate this illusion through the inevitable confrontation in which you tell them what they observe and how it affects you. Larger groups can also provide this kind of support, where practices such as dancing, singing, yoga, drumming, or martial arts bring our bodies together into connection. Whereas trauma disrupts connection within ourselves and other people, community can bring us back into rhythm with one another--a state, known as synchrony, that helps us regulate our arousal. THE POWER OF COMMUNITY Community is also a valuable protective factor with trauma. The bonds that we have with others help us live through overwhelming experiences--and, ultimately, help us recover from them. In the wake of a traumatic event, other people can help us feel safe, regulate our arousal, and help us make meaning of our experience. They offer us perspective and remind us we are a part of something bigger. While trauma professionals are often an important part of the recovery process, they are ideally one part of a larger network of support. In her article A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, essayist and social critic Rebecca Solnit explored the power of community through the lens of collective trauma. Solnit investigated the impact of a series of natural disasters on the communities who experienced them--the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, for instance, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Above all, pay attention to how your facial expressions react and the posture of your reflection. In the zero-point position all energy can flow through the root chakra, making you loose-limbed and relaxed.