from the therapists tool box

Our new therapist seems to know a lot a helpful tools and exercises and all kinds of small tricks. we learn something new every time we see her. I thought it would be nice to have a thread where we can collect the tricks and tools she is using/ teaching us and maybe others can join in and share tools they have learnt from their therapists.



one of the exercises we do for homework is what she called synchronisation.

the base is a mindful breathing meditation, but we try to do it together, each part being mindful about a different fragment of the experience off the exercise. like one is paying attention to the movement in the belly, 1 feels the shoulders move with the breath, 1 feels the air at the nose, one listens to the sound of breath, one says " breathe in, breath out" and because Asti has a monkey mind she imagines the picture of a balloon filling with air. then we try to blend together our experiences to create a full body experience that we all share. I think this is pretty advanced, but the Littles really like doing it, they say it feels good, and it helps all of us to do this in the morning to collect ourselves. the Qiu also showed that it increases heart rate variability, which means that it supports the nervous system in recovery.



today someone inside was in hyper arousal and I couldn't engage her in conversation because she was way out of her window of tolerance. dbt skills where useless because she was not connected to the body or the outside. the T asked her 2 " go" into a hand, like send awareness down one arm and into one hand. it sounded weird but we tried. she then asked me to take my other hand 2 Cup the first one in a supportive gesture, taking some of the weight and just holding it. 4 the part inside that almost felt like a hug, it felt like real support and she was able to calm down, feel more connected, as our hands connected, not alone, and we were able to find the problem. I think this is a genius way to support someone inside who is hard to reach or cannot speak or needs a little extra support.

I really like the sound of this tool. Thank you for sharing!

And I like the idea of sharing from the "therapists' tool boxes!" Since we are all different, and all of our T's are different, and one T may know of a tool that another doesn't... This seems like an awesome "community service" project!

I must say, I really am glad you are here, Birdsong. I've gotten so much helpful advice from your posts. Thank you for putting yourself out there, and for caring about others, especially since no one here really knows anyone else here outside in the real world (mostly, anyway, I know there are some exception, probably).

K

We talked about sleep and how (Astis) racing thoughts keep us up at night. Asti is suffering from it herself, sometimes thinking she will get psychotic the way her thoughts are all over the place

The T said to use imagery of something moving super fast and then have it slow down until there is only gentle or no movement. like having a super fast train on full speed, then slowing it until maybe it rest in a train station. or whatever imagery works.
she also said that to get out of the head it isn't necessary to go into the hands and do something. Asti always does stuff with her hands to calm her mind. but that doesn't help us sleep! she said you can also be in your head, but focus outward, not inward. doing mindfulness exercises like listening or breathing.
so we created this imagery story where these exercises are done in a row.
I tested it and it works for me. I hope it helps Asti too. She is really unhappy about feeling so driven and out of control.

Hi birdsong,

That's super helpful!

Iain

it works really well and it is more fun than the usual mindfulness stuff. we put it into words in the way we want to use it. in case you are interested. https://www.dis-sos.com/calming-racing-thoughts/

I am kind of sorry that we don't see our T more often...
it means that we can only share new stuff every other month.

we talked about behavior that is 'normal' for us because that is what was needed most of our life and that is anachronistic today. how trauma techniques seem weird and out of place when we keep using them today. and applying rules from the past makes us stand out as weird or somehow off.

the T calls it the rules of war. and the rules of peace.
it is a good picture, to know that some things are good and needed in the midst of battle but out of place in times of peace.
we need to know the rules of war that we are following so we can stop following them.
then we can find out the rules of peace and make sure we follow those.

the tool is really a CBT tool to write down lists to compare the different rules. replace old with new.
we think that it is super difficult to even realize the rules of war because the Littles know them best and they don't explain them, they just show an emotional/stress reaction when a rule of war is somehow broken. so it really is important to figure out what the old rules are to be able to replace them.

I hope that makes sense. it helps us TONS with the goal of finding healthy employment.
we always bring our warzone inside into every job and make it all war when it really isn't. and sometimes the bosses even tell us to chill but we can't because we are following the wrong set of rules. it is our homework to read into employment law to find out our rights.

I hope that can help with other people's situations somehow

I also read something a T wrote that is super helpful for us.
he said to imagine the head and the shoulders like a tent. like the shoulder hang down like the sides of a tent.
because we tend to lift them up and make them like a wall. and that signals our brain that we are in trouble and then we start to act like we are in trouble but we are not! we just had a wall instead of a tent.

I am sorry, I feel like I suck at explaining right now. I have Maya really close who really really wants to explain things (I bet she got that from Asti!) and it feels like it is affecting my sentences...

That thing about the rules of war and the rules of peace sounds useful. But it seems like there's more than just rules that I follow. It also has to do with expectations of the environment (like, it seems peaceful, but war could break out at any minute), and also with my reactions to things (which is different than actions based on rules). Like if someone is being playful and silly, but it triggers memories of being teased and made fun of under the guise of just being "playful," so I react as if the person in the present is as unfeeling as the one in the past. Could that be considered a rule of war? That anyone who is being playful or silly won't care if they are hurting your feelings so you shouldn't tell them? And the rule of peace would be that you could say, "That makes me uncomfortable and kind of hurts my feelings," and they would listen and try not to do that?

(I think littles are trying to explain this, too, so I'm not sure we're expressing ourselves too well.)

I have my share of Littles trying to explain things today... it makes it super difficult to express things properly...
yes, this is how it works.
the T calls it "rules of war" but really it is core beliefs, about the world, others, ourselves, interaction etc. it just seems to make it so much easier when we think of it in terms of war... like, of course it had to be that way. and of course it is different now.
I think she also named it rules because of Asti and us always looking for rules to follow and be really good at that...

aaaaand, I have to add the most ridiculous funny exercise that is the first one based on the polyvagal theory that we learned.
it is called vouuuuu
because you pretend to be a foghorn! that gets thru the fog of dissociation and shows a way into safety and home.
what you do is breathe deep and make the vou sound, (soft like in 'you') with deep resonance, its kind of vibrating in the back of the throat and down into the belly, it feels really weird, but that is the vagus activation that is good for us.
when the vou naturally stops because we run out of air it is important to let it flow in naturally. because naturally the breathing will take a short break before we breathe in a again. and that break does something that also helps with the vagus activation.
and then you play foghorn until you have to laugh I guess
the littles are bursting with laughter
and I guess it means it works.