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Tuesday, February 25, 2014.  I found something that focuses on the positive that I need to hear right now.  This is “big wigs speaking to big wigs” – about how to create change not by focusing on what is NOT happening toward accomplishing a goal but rather how to “honor the intention” to move in a positive direction.  Their employment is in areas connected to working toward getting humanity to change actions that are contributing to climate change.

I live in earth’s climate.  I also live in the climate I create within my own being on a moment-to-moment basis.  I am taking a look at my own climate!!

“Go where the energy is moving.  You don’t need to create it.  It’s already there.”

VIDEO:  Peter Senge:  Systems Thinking and the Gap Between Aspirations and Performance

This is an unlikely source for me to access in order to find new thinking about my old problems.  I know what my problems are.  Do I equally know what amazing positive steps I have taken and continue to take to live the best I can in my life WITH not only my difficulties but more importantly with the assets I have been using all of my life to get this far?

There are some amazingly wonderful statements made by the speaker in this talk.  I especially liked the first part before the question and answer segment begins.  But there are also many interesting and very helpful insights presented in response to the questions, as well.

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I did listen to The Wheel of Awareness practice video today.  Twice.  I did nothing special to change the flow of my day as I listened.  My little grandson was doing his thing.  I was doing my thing.  AND I was listening to this meditation.

I LOVED IT!  

It’s not about changing anything, not about judging anything or controlling anything.  This is my first foray into awareness of awareness itself.  Very nice!  Very gentle.  Simply affirming of ME as I AM – not as I should be or could be.  Nothing like that.  But it fascinated me!

I especially found the section on paying attention to how thoughts come into my mind and what the do when they are there and how they leave and how other thoughts show up to be – well – FUN!!!  Truth is – I have NO IDEA!!

So it seems I will benefit from listening to that meditation in that video again!! 

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I have reached enough of a crisis point in my life that I wish to find some way to expand my present experience of myself in my life PAST how I have been feeling.  I am not finding anything that tells me to CHANGE how I am now, what I feel, what I think.  This is a kind of honoring tradition it seems to me.  What exactly IS this state I am in right now?

I am not going to worry a bit about “how I got this way.”  That’s like asking a plant, “Gee, how exactly did you get to be a plant?”

I know a very great deal ABOUT how I struggle in life.  I want to learn a bit about how NOT to struggle quite so much.  This is sort of what the video is about I mention at the start of this post.  Find what’s working and go with THAT energy.

Do I know what’s working for me?  Not so much!  I must admit.  I have become a bit curious about that aspect of me in my life!

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Part of what is motivating me right now is a statement that Dr. Siegel makes in the first part of this video which I also referenced in my post yesterday.  The first part is his succinct expert presentation of attachment and of attachment disorders.  I suppose it’s right around “18” on the slider bar where he states that (my paraphrase) the best someone with disorganized attachment insecure attachment disorder can probably hope for is to “move on up” to the less severe insecure disorders of either avoidant or ambivalent (preoccupied). 

That is not good enough for me.  I find that statement to be a negative one that belies the tremendous amount of work we who were most traumatized from birth continue to make toward healing.  As much as I appreciate the work of Seigel – I certainly beg to differ with him on that prognosis for us!  How DARE he limit his thoughts about our possibilities for improvement in such a way?

At the same time I recognize that I know most of what happened to change my physiological development in response to trauma is permanent.  At the same time Dr. Siegel seems to be extremely hopeful and positive in MANY ways that the new neurobiological information is indicating that we can change the way our brain is working in significant ways.

I don’t think anyone knows enough at this juncture in our scientific discovery to make a statement as fact about what is or is not possible in the line of healing for severe early abuse, neglect and trauma survivors.  On a personal level?

I am taking inventory.  When I make my grocery shopping list for the week I do it based on what I HAVE in my kitchen because that’s the only way I will know what I need.  I HAVE much positive in me and I forget to recognize that!

So – I am on THAT road right now!  Most curious, too, about what I am discovering!

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase: 

A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Monday, February 24, 2014.  While I cannot find a publication date for this article The Verdict Is In – by Alan Sroufe and Daniel Siegel a scan of the references shows me that it was published at some time later than 2010.  I also see there are some formatting errors in this text as it is posted on Dr. Daniel J. Siegel’s website.

This article again includes a brief accurate history of attachment theory and of some of the major research that back up findings in this field.  I am particularly interested in finding information about what attachment experts have to say about healing for people who suffered from extreme abuse, neglect and trauma during their earliest developmental stages of life.  I continue to suspect that for those in the bottom ranges of early relationship traumatization that research findings don’t necessarily apply to us as a specific group.

Generalizations must be made from research that does not isolate it’s study cohort to include ONLY those with “disorganized” insecure attachment disorders.

I also found it most enlightening that Dr. Siegel, one of the topmost attachment experts in the world, clearly states in the first part of THIS TALK as I mentioned it in this post – +EARLY TRAUMA, DISSOCIATION AND DR. DANIEL SIEGEL’S “PLANE OF POSSIBILITY” CLEARLY states that Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) IS NOT an insecure attachment disorder.  (See 19:40 on the video — THIS TALK — for this statement.)  RAD is NOT among the categories of attachment technically described – and evidently is not among and RELATED category, either.  It is its own “problem.”  I what is being said by that statement is that “only” “orphanage kids” without any attachment at all “have” RAD.  I will transcribe this part of Siegel’s talk in a later post.  I first want to search around his work to find more of what he says on the topic.

(What happens to those who did not have an attachment – with the person they should have been able to attach with – when that person tortured them?)

While I cannot in any way argue with a global expert on attachment I do want to search around online to find what ELSE Siegel has to say about RAD which he says in the talk I mention here happens to children raised in orphanages.  I imagine he is suggesting that it comes only to human beings raised during their earliest developmental stages without ANY attachments.

Yet as I read the words of this article I include next in this post I search my entire childhood to try to figure out if I had any attachments or not!  Did I have the “islands” mentioned below?  Even though I concluded in one recent post that I must have had an attachment with my psychotically abusive mother – from what I am continuing to search out about attachment with Siegel’s knowledge base such as I can access it – I did NOT have any kind of attachment with Mother.

Because she interfered with any other potential relationship I could have had – I do not rule out the very real possibility that I DID NOT have an attachment as a child with anyone.

What I do know is that I am very much REACTING to the new attachment-related facts I am searching out and trying to understand.  Again – I think people who are like me, people who find their way to the pages of this blog and feel CONNECTED to the information I present here – are among the group of traumatized infant-child abuse survivors who have NOT been studied as our own cohort regarding what happened to us in what should have been our earliest attachment environments.

Meanwhile I continue to work to “integrate” – to use Siegel’s top term – this information I am finding.  I must go slowly and give myself plenty of time and room to react as I AM reacting.  I never assume that I am LEARNING anything new until I digest what rings true for me IN MY OWN MIND.

Meanwhile, here are some passages from this article I found today.

 “There’s now overwhelming empirical support for the fact that early experience is a powerful force in development. But what can clinicians draw from this work, beyond feeling reassured that their clinical intuition isn’t simply an “article of faith”? For one thing, this extensive work can bring perspective to questions such as why change is so difficult and why emotional closeness can be so scary to some people. Long before children have the language and conceptual tools to process experience, negative or even traumatic patterns of interaction are incorporated in the brain, the functioning of their psyche, and even in the molecules that control the expression of their genes. Therefore, people can get “lost in familiar places” as they continually recreate their earliest patterns of interactions across the lifespan. One role of a therapist is to bring awareness to such patterns and then intentionally create new pathways for clients to take as they unlearn their long-established habits.

“Another important implication of attachment research is that it’s possible to develop a secure state of mind as an adult, even in the face of a difficult childhood. Early experience influences later development, but it isn’t fate: therapeutic experiences can profoundly alter an individual’s life course. Further, therapists can learn from attachment researchers’ hard-earned insights into human development which features of relational experience are the most effective at optimizing well-being. When parents are sensitive to a child—when they pay attention to and tune in to the signals sent by the child, make sense of these signals and get a glimpse of the child’s inner experience, and then respond in a timely and effective manner—children are likelier to thrive. The essential features of a therapeutic relationship mirror this process in many ways.

“The brain continues to remodel itself in response to experience throughout our lives, and our emerging understanding of neuroplasticity is showing us how relationships can stimulate neuronal activation and even remove the synaptic legacy of early social experience.  Developmental trajectories are complex, often having “islands” of positive relational experience, even within largely negative histories. Through therapeutic relationships and reflective practice, one can make contact with these islands—the “angels” in the nursery, to quote developmental psychologist Alicia Lieberman—and cultivate their growth to the benefit of parents, children, and adults alike. In this way, clinical practice can use the power of our attachment relationships to cultivate deep and lasting change throughout the lifespan and even stop the transmission of disabling early experiences across the generations.”  Above article pages 12-13 – read article here – The Verdict Is In

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Sunday, February 23, 2014.  I must admit it has been a LONG time since I have felt excited by and hopeful about much of anything.  Because all experience is very intense to me, my current discovery of the knowledge online via YouTube videos of Dr. Daniel Siegel’s thinking is not even a comfortable one for me.  It’s scary in ways I can’t really even define – nor do I need to define it.

This morning I am taking a look through some of the videos shown at the sidebar of the Siegel link I put in my previous post.  I watched the excellent one on the shy child.  I am watching one right now called

“Being” Versus “Doing” With Your Child

I am thrilled by what I am hearing and I am filled with hope.  Rather than taking time at this moment to fill in the blanks on this blog post I will simply encourage readers to spend a few moments watching/listening to some of these videos.

At the same time I would mention – BE CAREFUL OF YOURSELF!  As trauma survivors we have SO MUCH INFORMATION built into our body from the overwhelmingly harmful experiences of our early lives that nothing is simple for us.  When I listen to this kind of information I am keenly aware of what my body knows about THE OTHER KIND OF LIFE that I experienced that was opposite of the benevolent, healthy, kind, compassionate (etc.) Siegel talks about.

But this information is IMPORTANT to us!!  Little bit by little bit I believe we can make mountains of good use from this information!  We might have to take this slowly.  I have to pause and silence many times as I try to make it through these videos.  I find I have to make space within myself to take in this new information – I am so full of trauma-acquired information that it can be hard for me to take in ANY new information at all, even if it is good and helpful and even necessary info!!

But I AM going to continue to learn about what Dr. Siegel has to say!  I hope some readers will be inspired to follow this journey with me.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Saturday, February 22, 2014.  II find it hard for me who has always lived in the trench where the grass roots and the wonderful red wiggler worms grow to wrestle with the mental experts such as Dr. Daniel J. Siegel is.  His bio reads as a Numero Uno in the world on the neurobiology of human attachment and the mind.  I could probably achieve a doctorate in something impressive if I were to study and learn even one-hundredth of what this man knows.

So why can’t I just listen to him speak as I did yesterday on YouTube and feel grateful to him for imparting his knowledge to me through a long, complex and circuitous route known to me in the vernacular as THE INTERNET?

Why do I struggle so hard to let in information that is new and foreign to me – in WORDS only?  After all, do I question whether or not Dr. Siegel knows what he’s talking about?

Yes I do.  From my perspective he is at the very TOP of the knowledge heap about attachment, the brain and the mind while I am very near the absolute bottom.  This much I am certain of.

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In between the continual ongoing interruptions to my trains of thought yesterday as I cared for my 19-month-old grandson in my small one room I listened – and I admit, avidly so – to two videos of Dr. Siegel speaking that I found at the link I posted on this blog yesterday.

His words were spoken at “A groundbreaking conference at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA, March 31^st – April 2^nd, 2011” called

Conversations on Attachment – Integrating the Science of Love and Spirituality

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This link is to Part One of Dr. Siegel’s speech titled “Mindsight, Mindfulness and the Journey from Me to We

This link is to Part Two of that speech – HERE

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I am not saying that Siegel’s talk wasn’t as loaded with hope and life as was the primordial ooze from which this life we are all a part of today.  Oh, yes.  Truth is in his words.  BUT!

BUT I find within myself that I believe I know a whole lot of OTHER related and important information Siegel did not directly address.  How does this matter to me?

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I plan to listen again to these two parts of his speech – and again – until I am far more clear than I am at this moment about what Siegel SAID so that I can become clear about what I know about what he did not say. 

I will also spend the time to read everything I can find online about what Siegel refers to as “the plane of possibility.”  (HERE is a basic review of that thinking.)

If you go find the second part of the speech and then listen to the first part of what he says in that after lunch talk you will hear the most accurate and succinct presentation about attachment that can be found in the world.  Next Siegel took his audience of 1500 people through a meditation exercise that in the end was designed for one purpose:  To introduce to those people the concept of “the plane of possibility.”  Sigel then (you can find this using the scroll bar under the video by jumping to the end of this meditation exercise) gives a graphic picture of this plane along with a brief description of it.

It is IMPORTANT that readers who might follow the posts yet to come on this blog about this topic find that graphic image and discussion about “the plane of possibility” because I know one thing:  I spent the first 30 years of my life nearly entirely LIVING on that plane because I had never been given any choice not to.

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I have not yet had the inner stamina to re-listen to that talk.  I sense that Siegel has given me the words – the plane of possibility – to describe the state I lived in during the first 18 years of my life in a psychotically abusive childhood.  Because it never COULD dawn on me until I reached the age of 30 that I had been abused at all I consider that I lived on “that plane” all of those years.

THAT is what dissociation does to us – just my suspicion, my belief.  Unlike probably all of those 1500 people who followed that meditation exercise – who were being encouraged by Siegel to FIND that plane – I believe those of us who suffered horrendously traumatic infancies and childhoods have ALWAYS know what that plane IS.  THOSE people had a choice.

I do not.

Do I have a choice to LEAVE that “plane of possibility?”

HUGE question!

Every time I receive a trauma trigger I lose my ability NOT to be on that plane.

And even when I am not experiencing direct trauma triggers my body was MADE to live on that plane through the trauma I endured and survived.  This is likely the description of the “depersonalization-derealization” sense all of us who live with dissociation can recognize.

Does Siegel recognize what I am saying?  I don’t know.  I won’t even have a clue until I do my investigation as I mentioned of everything I can find on “the plane of possibility.” 

I am also ordering The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician’s Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration  by Dr. Siegel.

 

What are the implications of what I am suspecting about my own experience?  What are the ramifications of being told to LEARN to do something/go “somewhere” that most severe early trauma survivors need to be shown how to highly value as a part of an inescapable survival legacy we were FORCED to experience?

What if we WANT to escape “the plane of possibility?”  WANT to feel alive and real in a REAL world of “feeling felt” that was the world we were SUPPOSED to find ourselves living within – and did not?

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If we want to talk possibility – I am here now, I survived my infancy and childhood then – ONLY BECAUSE it was POSSIBLE to do so.  I know what that felt like – surviving what should not have been survivable.  I lived on that plane because THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY I COULD LIVE AT ALL.

And Siegel is teaching others to GET THERE?

Can he teach the rest of us how NOT to be there?

Are we supposed to just learn how to “be there” and like it?

Is there anything we survivors know about “the plane of possibility” that anyone else wants to hear about?  (Not very likely, seems to me.)

Those of us who live in a body that was formed by trauma do not have the same range of possibilities that nonsurvivors have.  For example, we cannot go back and get a non-trauma-formed body so that we can experience our life in anything like an “ordinary” body — because it is NOT POSSIBLE! 

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I recognize a lot of my own truth in the visual image of “the plane of possibility” that Siegel gives at the end of the second part of his talk.  What I know is powerful but it is NOT pretty.  I will be pursuing my thinking on this matter.

 

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Friday, February 21, 2014.  I began to look online this morning specifically for “the longterm consequences in adulthood of neglect during infancy and childhood.”  I am not sure it is possible to search out NEGLECT as a topic separate from abuse.  I certainly did not find an inroad this morning into the specifics of my intended search. 

I gave up easily once I landed on the following which is good enough for me — at least for the time being.

A HOST OF

EXCELLENT VIDEOS ON ATTACHMENT –

Most of these videos on YouTube are by Dr. Daniel Siegel.  I found them this morning using a Google search using the terms “Daniel Siegel neglect.”  I actually have the time to watch/listen to all of them given the subzero weather outdoors and babywatch I am currently involved with.  I’ll give it a go!!

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Thursday, February 20, 2014.  I cannot find a way to stop the Merry-Go-Round of my thoughts this morning as they continue to inform me that insecure attachments are STILL — attachments.

My thoughts are telling me “There is something worse and that is no attachment at all.”

NEVER in all of my years of research and study about what happened to me as an abused infant and child (birth to age 18) have I had these thoughts before:  No matter how psychotically abusive mentally ill Mother was I was STILL attached to her.  Majorly so.

I had no choice.  That this attachment was NOTHING but unsafe and insecure matters not a bit. 

Mother interfered with and prevented any attachment I could have had with anyone else.  She had great difficulty in preventing my brother’s attachment to me in the early years of my and his life.  He was 13 months old when I was born and loved me as much as is possible.  While his love and care for me did not go away when he reached about the age of two Mother could control his access to me.

The same thing happened very early in my life with any relationship infant me could have had with my father and with my grandmother.  Eventually right before my 6th birthday Mother made sure my grandmother could no longer interfere at all on my behalf.  Grandmother was left behind in Los Angeles, CA while Mother moved her family to Alaska.

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Never before this morning have I ever thought in terms of me having ANY attachment relationship with Mother.  Yes, I have considered the “trauma bond” that connected me to her.  But at this moment I am realizing that I would have to list my newly discovered fact about my childhood that I DID have an unsafe and insecure attachment with Mother (the only attachment I was allowed to form).

An unsafe and insecure – insanely abusive attachment AS ONE OF MY RESILIENCY FACTORS?

Oh, Geeze!  This can’t be good.

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My thinking has been running along the general groove of early primary attachment figures being those people in a young person’s life who are CONSISTENTLY present over LONG periods of time.

This basic definition as it runs through my thoughts does NOT include any information about the quality of such an attachment relationship.

Is it, then, a bottom line in regarding attachment histories that ANY such ATTACHMENT exists versus NO such ATTACHMENT — AT ALL?

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What is the length of (real) time required for such an attachment to be formed for a little person?  How many hours a day?  Hours per week?  Over how many months?  Over how many years?

What is the degree of dependency needs a little person has to have as it seeks to fulfill those needs in a primary attachment relationship?

What if the requisite amount of time is not available for the little person to get their needs met?

Are they forced to substitute less permanent (and faulty ineffectual by default) attachments (as Dr. Neufeld might suggest, with peers) in an attempt to get their needs met?

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The kinds of attachment needs and patterns portrayed in

Still Face Experiment: Dr. Edward Tronick – YouTube

do not only exist in the first year of life.  My thinking today is scanning the recesses of my being for information about what I could imagine happens for little people who HAVE FORMED NO ATTACHMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE that allowed them to get to the advancing stages of the baby in this video as it interacts with its mother.

When more and more mothers abandon their infants at birth to care that is ALWAYS substandard to the mother-infant attachment relationship care an infant is built to require are we “breeding” as a society a strata among us who are without any primary attachments at all?

Of course we must rethink what primary attachments are, I suppose.  What worked in eras where mothers, with the assistance of other very close kin, invested massive amounts of contact time with offspring – even in modern times – before a child entered kindergarten PART TIME is not working today.  How CAN it work with the mothers absent?

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I am honestly scared by what the determined nature of my thoughts is telling me.  No matter how horrifyingly torturous and abusive — on a consistent and longterm basis — my mother’s treatment of me was I WAS STILL BETTER OFF THAN CHILDREN BEING STRANDED IN DAY ORPHANAGES today because at least I DID have an attachment relationship with mother — NO MATTER HOW UNSAFE AND INSECURE it was.

My thoughts today are telling me this is true even though I know the insecure attachment disorder that I have had all of my life beginning at birth is among the most complex and troublesome possible (as it includes disorganization, disorientation, reactivity, emotional dysregulation, dissociation, etc.).  At least I HAD attachment.

(I have also been considering that the troubling rise in austism-spectrum disorders would OF COURSE be tied to such scenarios where they exist — and who is looking THERE for source material inside little people being raised with socially-legitimized absent mothering?)

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I encountered the term ALLOPARENTING this week (which is what I am doing 50-55 hours per week with my youngest grandson who turned 19 months today).  I have to research this term which is evidently rooted in sociology and anthropology.

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I also want to mention here that any thinking I do about early attachment an infant NEEDS with its mother begins in the kind of information presented in this article which I consider to be among the top 10 most important articles on the internet:

Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health

SCROLL DOWN PAST THE MULTI-LANGUAGE ABSTRACTS – TO PAGE 16 FOR DRAWINGS if you do not want to read the entire article — but PLEASE consider trying to read enough of Dr. Schore’s words to gain a basic understanding of how fundamentally essential these interactions are to the physiological development of a human being.  How could it be possible for daycare center staff to replicate these essential interactions?

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Attachment and the regulation of the right brain – by Dr. Allan N. Schore

Notes on this blog:  **Dr. Allan Schore on Emotional Regulation – Notes

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Wednesday, February 19, 2014.  I am going to write this post in an effort to unburden my thinking and feeling that has me in its talons this morning.  My grandson is down for his morning nap.  A little bit of time to myself has appeared.  What can I say?  What MUST I say to be true to myself?  Will my thoughts come into words in anything like a coherent pattern?

I must try….

First I will say I am thinking about the vision I was given up on our Alaskan mountain homestead the year I turned 15.  I have not asked – that I know of – for my perceptions today at 62 any more than I asked for that vision to come to me.  I was physically a woman at 15 but only around the time of my vision did I face the transition, the transformation that would take me from my age of innocence into my age of accountability.  I have been accountable for many of my choices since that day.  I am accountable now.  But – for WHAT?

What lone voice do I think with, sing with, today?  In that vision I had no fear.  No worries.  No concerns of any kind.  The extent of my feeling troubled today is so strong upon me that it is hard for me to follow my ordinary self through this day.  I WANT me to be in THIS day.

I am far into the future.  I am foreseeing the possibilities of scenarios playing themselves out that shake me.  That quake me.  Yet I also know that if “people” are not remotely concerned about the fact that certain groups of humans are changing the earth climate to bring about ice ages in some places and severe drought in others, are changing the planet with concerns not for the death of species but for the trillions to be made once trade routes across the poles and access to resources under the sea — what future do we face?

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I find myself feeling hopeful today because I do believe it is the “poor” in money people around this globe that will end up saving the human species.  These people live in cultures that are the closest to indigenous ones that can be found.  These saviors of our species probably include those living in the 100+ identified “untouched” groups within the depths of the tiny bit of wilderness this planet still has upon it.

It is not the wealthy in America – or Canada – or anywhere else on this earth that will save our species — if we can, in fact, be saved at all.

What I do know is that it is the worst of the worst kinds of signs to me that women – MOTHERS – of increasing numbers of our species’ offspring are abandoning them at or very near their birth to work outside the home.  It bothers me that because the truth about what children need especially prior to age 5 can so easily be forgotten that nobody has to feel guilty or bad in any way for the suffering through neglect that our offspring are being forced to endure.

This neglect is changing the kind of humans these children will grow up to be – in their very physiology.

See no evil?  There is none.  Who says so?

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I don’t want to know what I know.  Yet I am the one who opened my own self up to research and discovery about what attachment of humans to their mothers and other PRIMARY consistent attachment caregivers IS and what it is designed to accomplish.  Humans DID reach a point in evolution where things were going so well in cultures that mothers could care for their infants optimally so that our nervous system-brain could develop in the finest of directions.

We were able to achieve SELFHOOD and consciousness.  We were able to develop the ability to connect our feeling being with empathy, compassion and altruistic action.  We evolved to make informed choices freely.  We are losing these abilities.  They came to us DIRECTLY THROUGH advances in abilities of mothers to MOTHER their young offspring.

Take away the mothers – take away the essence of our humanity.

We are so neglecting the facts about what safe and secure attachment early relationships are designed to accomplish that we are putting our “civilized” children at great risk for a retreat to a physiological response to life that makes them – in the depths of my thinking – more animal than evolved human.

That I realize today I do not see this happening IN EVERY CULTURE in the world is of great solace to me.  That the direction America is going in appears to be sending our nation over the brink like so many 7-year annihilation lemmings is becoming less and less of a concern to me.

We are going to get as a nation exactly what we are asking for!

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I find myself boiling down the problem.  Our culture succeeded in devaluing the contribution that women – as mothers – made to the point that they finally fought back – and LEFT.

Women abandoning their offspring for most of their waking early life is NOT merely about money although our problems are increasingly talked about as if “the almighty dollar” has control over everything especially Americans think, say and do.

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Safe and secure intimate early attachment relationships for human offspring are not touchy-feelie incidentals to human growth and development.  Those relationships make us human and advance us beyond the animal characteristics that are meant to only be HALF of who we are in our physical lifetime.

Take away those relationships – take away the best of our humanity.

That must be what America wants.  We could hardly be doing a better job of designing our own demise.

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I began this blog personally focussing on the effects of the terrible abuse I suffered for 18 years from birth – done to me by a psychotic mentally ill (Borderline Personality Disorder) mother.  What I see today is that NEGLECT — the insidious NEGLECT of the needs of our little ones under the age of 5 has the power to destroy our entire nation — and see how easy it is to neglect to even notice this is happening?

Look around.  Who is caring for the babies, toddlers and preschoolers in our society?  How do we define care?  Take care of their physical needs and what comes out at the end is ……  well, I’ve said enough for one day.

Except to ask, “Where is the tipping point?  Where is the point that once reached means we cannot turn back?”

When SELVES disappear and we don’t even notice?  When the ability to communicate through facial expression disappears?  When half of our citizens feel numb and don’t even know it?  When we lose the ability to notice suffering or to care and act accordingly on behalf of others — or even care about the planet we live upon? 

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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Monday, February 17, 2014.  I could easily have written 50 posts over the past months about the information contained in just this one succinct article.  Nobody listens to me.  Does anyone listen to this gifted expert in the development of HEALTHY little people and thus of HEALTHY adult human beings?  It is IMPERATIVE that we pay attention to this information Dr. Gordon Neufeld is giving us!  Is anybody listening?

Nurturing children: Why “early learning” doesn’t help

Children should start attending school later, not earlier, Canadian development psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld reveals. “Early learning” programs for young children have no benefits for kids, he adds. So why are governments running down the opposite track?

by Andrea Mrozek, Manager of Research and Communications, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada

From the article at the above link:

“I want to make sure that my son learns how to get along with others,” one parent will say. Another will add, “My daughter is shy. I want her to be with other children, to help her come out of her shell.” A third might enthusiastically report that her child loves all her friends at daycare: “She can’t wait to go and spend time with them!”

These are just some of the things parents say when it comes to the benefits they see in the social settings that pre-schools, daycares and all-day kindergarten provide. Parents are rightly concerned about whether their children get along well with others.

However, is it true that early interaction with peers improves socialization for young children? Canadian developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld says this is not the case, particularly in sending young children into “social” environments before they are ready. [1]

Defining socialization

The word socialization can mean different things to different people.

With regards to small children, Dr. Neufeld clarifies one thing that socialization is not: “Probably the greatest myth that has evolved is this idea that socializing with one’s equals leads to socialization.”

Developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner also clarifies what socialization is not: “It should be clear that being socialized is not necessarily the same as being civilized. Nazi youth were also products of a socialization process.” [2]

Socialization in childrearing means rendering children fit for society so that children can grow and mature into becoming contributing adults, who can respectfully interact with others in community, be it at work or home, with colleagues, family and friends.

Successful socialization is of particular interest where reports of bullying hit the media with some regularity. [3]

For Dr. Neufeld and his colleagues at The Neufeld Institute, socialization is more complex than simply being able to get along well with peers. [4] Socialization involves being able to get along with others while at the same time being true to oneself.

Please read the rest of this important article HERE!

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I have been howling into the maelstrom on this blog for years now about the preventable lifelong terrible consequences of trauma that is passed to our offspring by the people who are entrusted to care for them. 

As my awareness has grown to include the national crisis we have created in our neglect of understanding how earliest attachment needs of infants and children ARE NOT MET in all but the most select small home-centered day-care settings I find that the kickback to my efforts to pass on exactly the kind of information Dr. Neufeld gives us are most often met with extremely hostile, defensive and unsettling misinformation based on very select current research that “proves” that there are BENEFITS and NO HARM to little people who spend the majority of their waking early lives under the care of hired help rather than under the care of THEIR MOTHERS or another very qualified entirely safe and secure attachment person.

I have moved in my thinking and belief to consider that nearly every early care setting, especially for children under the age of four, that I have heard of is little more than a “day orphanage” situation.  HOW DARE I SAY SUCH A THING!?!?!

True, as so many seem to like to claim, for abused and poverty stricken (?) infants and children daycare settings MIGHT be “what saves” these little people from “doom.”  But, really!?  What kind of a bizarre twist is this to the fact that few women who bear children into the world “can” stay at home to care for them during their offspring’s most critical early developmental stages?

We can, as individuals and as a society, justify anything we want to.  We are doing exactly that in regards to how we are slinging “the facts” around to “prove” that it makes no difference whatsoever WHO takes care of our babies!

Dr. Neufeld stands on the opposite side of popular in this free-for-all.  I absolutely stand there with him.

There is nothing haphazard, willy-nilly or accidental about the way humans have evolved over the eons plus eons we have been moving into our future.  We have a very specific design that requires that very specific early needs be met in very specific ways at very specific times for us to “come out OK.”

There is such a small margin of error during the earliest months of human life for “messing things up” that it basically doesn’t exist at all.  There is a price to be paid – a HIGH price called A HUMAN LIFE – for neglecting to provide in intimate, loving, safe and secure relationships what little people need ESPECIALLY from conception to age three so that they turn out as close to FINE as is possible.

Otherwise – if we want to accept this fact or not – some degree of trauma altered development is going to take place as a little person’s BODY (and self) are forced to adapt to survive in a less-than-optimal “good enough” benevolent world.

We need to get “back to the drawing board” to redesign our “modern” society so that the needs of everyone can be met in the best way possible.  IS THIS POSSIBLE?  We will not find out if we do not take a hard look at the truth about what humans need to come out of their most critical early developmental stages – intact.

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This is a very important study whose findings hit the “press” today:

Years after Bullying, Negative Impact on a Child’s Health May Remain – Longitudinal study shows negative, compounding effects of bullying

Who is tracking the longterm consequences of what daycare is doing to our children into unhealthy people?

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment

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Monday, February 17, 2014.  In spite of having a quite demanding young toddler after my attention at the moment – (distraction:  Too strong a word?  Not.) –  I am going to try to post something important as I introduce it in my almost coherent words!!

What does being human have to do with ancient jawless fish?  Have you ever read any of the work of Dr. Stephen Porges (professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and director for that institution’s Brain-Body Center)? 

Illuminating.  Simply illuminating, very important information about – being HUMAN!

Here is a transcription Ravi Dykema was kind enough to post online in April 2006 of an interview done with Dr. Porges that is very readable and a great place to begin thinking along the lines of this great man.

“What if many of your troubles could be explained by an automatic reaction in your body to what’s happening around you? What if the cure for mental and emotional disorders ranging from autism to panic attacks lay in a new understanding and approach to the way the nervous system operates? Stephen Porges, Ph.D., thinks it could be so. Porges, professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois, Chicago, and director for that institution’s Brain-Body Center, has spent much of his life searching for clues to the way the brain operates, and has developed what he has termed polyvagal theory. It is a study of the evolution of the human nervous system and the origins of brain structures, and it assumes that more of our social behaviors and emotional disorders are biological—that is, they are “hard wired” into us—than we usually think. Based on the theory, Porges and his colleagues have developed treatment techniques that can help people communicate better and relate better to others.

The term “polyvagal” combines “poly,” meaning “many,” and “vagal,” which refers to the important nerve called the “vagus.” To understand the theory, let’s look at the vagus nerve, a primary component of the autonomic nervous system. This is the nervous system that you don’t control, that causes you to do things automatically, like digest your food. The vagus nerve exits the brain stem and has branches that regulate structures in the head and in several organs, including the heart. The theory proposes that the vagus nerve’s two different branches are related to the unique ways we react to situations we perceive as safe or unsafe. It also outlines three evolutionary stages that took place over millions of years in the development of our autonomic nervous system.”  By Ravi Dykema

How your nervous system sabotages your ability to relate:  An interview with Stephen Porges about his polyvagal theory

These are some of the questions Dr. Porges answers in this interview:

RD: Please tell me about the theory you have developed, polyvagal theory. Isn’t it an innovation on the theory of the two nervous systems [sympathetic/autonomic]?

RD: I’ve heard the human mind described as a paranoid instrument. The premise is that when we are living in our senses, in the here and now, we usually feel safe, but our thinking mind often throws scary impressions in front of us, as if it’s anticipating some threat.

RD: Can you talk about polyvagal theory as it relates to our need for safety and our reaction when we don’t think it’s there?

RD: Where’s the “freeze” response in all this?

RD: How does polyvagal theory relate to all this?

RD: So we could use dramatic facial expressions to calm down?

RD: So do humans have the ability to consciously access our more recently developed neurological systems, instead of reverting automatically to our reactive systems? If so, can we use them to override the vague anxiety with which many of us live?

RD: So let’s say I’ve just arrived at a party where I don’t know anybody, and I realize I’m underdressed for the occasion. I’m embarrassed, but it’s an important business function and I can’t leave. How would I use the listening-to-my-body approach to calm myself and feel safe?

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE INTERVIEW!

How your nervous system sabotages your ability to relate:  An interview with Stephen Porges about his polyvagal theory

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My personal favorite Porges’ gem in this article:   “…“home” is a powerful metaphor for safety.”

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase:  A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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