-
Discussion
-
I was hesitant to post here due to relevance, but this post is made for budding psychics like me hitting a wall in their groundwork, so I think this does fit under development. If it’s not relevant enough, then that’s fair. There’s a few resources, but not many for psychics who struggle with ptsd which inspired me to create this post.
Mentions of lucid dreaming, awakening, basic psychic groundwork, astral projecting, shadow work and mentions of metaphysical sources.
​
**Cw: brief mentions of trauma and trauma related topics. Brief mention of a NDE without details of event.**
**I am not a mental health professional. Most of what is below are anecdotal with sources added. I am also not a professional spiritual practitioner. I’ve only practiced spiritually for over a year. I don’t do readings for others at the time of this post.**
Below I will talk about my experiences with ptsd/c-ptsd and the struggle with basic mindfulness practices. Even looking for free resources online, I see articles claiming that mindfulness is a solution to dealing with trauma, but it’s not that simple. If you have ptsd and have found yourself struggling with basic mindfulness you are not a failure. This is common for those who have experienced severe and/or prolonged trauma. You just need to go about your practice in a different way. I will also talk about how visualization isn’t universally accessible to everyone.
Let’s start out with visualization. As much as I love *Psychic Witch* by Matt Auryn, he relies heavily on visualization. One of the reasons I appreciate *The Illusion of Method* by Mark Gurrian is that he acknowledges some of us can’t visualize. Some may read my anecdotes and only get words on a page, versus seeing a man/woman dealing with the situations that I describe. In his book, Mark(technique originally created by Robert Bruce) describes an aphantasia/ low-vision- friendly way on how one would astral project by meditating on the sensation of climbing a rope out of their body.
Even though I don’t have aphantasia, this inspired me to utilize sensation over visualization for when my anxiety made visuals hard. The feeling of *knowing* I’m connected to the earth and the consciousness that runs through all things can get me grounded. The sensation of warmth in my chest concentrating as I call my energy to me can make me feel centered. The sensation of a click of energy around me can make me feel shielded.
I also have the privilege of insight in the low-vision and blind community as my partner is low-vision. Both she and her fully blind friend are advanced lucid dreamers. I will link the free MILD guide below along with other resources on lucid dreaming. I won’t speak personally on this because I’m not a good lucid dreamer and wouldn’t do it justice.
**Mindfulness and trauma:**
When I was a teen, I sought out a middle school counselor. She recommended meditation, breathwork, and yoga. I remember trying my best, but couldn’t. Terrifying imagery appeared when I shut my eyes. Focusing on my breath reminded me of a NDE I had and she did not teach me to reorient my focus onto something else that wasn’t triggering. She also wasn’t aware how different posture and poses were triggering for me (and I didn’t know better to tell her). One time, she did yoga with me, instructing me to focus on my breath. I started to panic and she told me to tell her what I was experiencing. She guided me straight into a panic attack. The whole day I was dissociative and shaky, having intrusive thoughts about my body suddenly dying.
Around the same time I sought massage therapy on my own for pain and the therapist told me she had never seen a kid who couldn’t relax or was as tense as me before. She recommended meditation, but I explained that for some reason I couldn’t do it. She was baffled because she never heard of meditation causing a panic attack before, either. Also not helpful were my parents’ lack of an appropriate reaction to my NDE and their beliefs that my chronic problems weren’t real.
These practices were too much for me and I didn’t find anyone who understood complex and severe trauma. What was going on was that these basic mindfulness practices were outside of my window of tolerance, which is described in David Trevealen’s *Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness*. I knew the school counselor couldn’t provide what I needed- a **trauma informed therapist**. I never got correct treatment for my issues until I was an adult because my parents were resistant to what I wanted. I was on my own, reading books of other people that lived tough lives to gain some sort of validation. Overall, this left me feeling like I was a failure. Then as I got older I would scoff at anyone who recommended meditation. My partner experienced similar issues and we both came to the conclusion meditation just wasn’t a solution everyone made it out to be for anxiety. What I didn’t know from teenage through young adult years was that I was going about mindfulness the wrong way for my specific issues.
In his book *Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness*, David Treleaven talks about how mindfulness can actually exasperate PTSD symptoms. For the survivor, the mind is no longer a safe place. We are locked in a fight, flight, or freeze state. Our brains are hypervigilant for cues that might indicate we’re in danger again. When we close our eyes with nothing to distract ourselves, we see those triggering images again.
A lot of the time, we are flip-flopping between states of anxiety and reactivity to numbness and dissociation. David talks about the sweet spot between the two as the *window of tolerance*. An experience doesn’t have to be pleasant, but tolerable. It’s important for us to recognize when we’re going too far in either direction. Cognitive behavior therapy can be helpful here if you lack the tools to self regulate (like me). David talks about the scale of arousal. My psychologist uses a SUDS scale. Basically, a way for you to determine where you are emotionally so you can be mindful of it.
Getting a little older and out on my own, I started to realize I had a problem. My plastic pitcher fell on me while I was cleaning one day. I swung uselessly in the air and then grabbed my pitcher before slamming it onto the floor and shattering it. I then burst into tears because that was my only measuring cup and I was broke. There were holes in the walls and doors from several one man fights.
I didn’t like the person I was and felt like my outbursts were making things uncomfortable for my best friend despite her support.
I went to a nearby school for psychology where I got counsel for free.
This was the first person who recognized my PTSD and taught me a grounding exercise when I’d be confronted with imagery and felt I was in danger.
“What are three things that you see in this room?”
“What are three things you hear?”
“What are three things you smell?”
“What are three things you can feel?”
I found myself back in session, no longer face-to-face with family. I was back. The more I used this exercise, the easier it became to regulate myself. I eventually could watch the fight or flight surge through me like a wave as if an objective observer. I was in control.
I still use this technique for when I’m unwell. Currently, I pay attention to my bodily sensations like what is mentioned in the above paragraph, then to my environment, and where I am in space and time- that I’m safe. When I finish up astral projecting, I’ll hone in on what I’m experiencing with my senses to integrate with my body again.
In *Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness*, David talks about this grounding technique in his first chapter with a client that had outbursts like mine. He instructed him to focus on the sensation of the chair against his back and his feet firmly planted to keep himself grounded in present reality.
While I could ground myself back down, I struggled with more mindfulness- especially breath work. The student counselor at the time would try to ease me into it, but it reminded me too much of my NDE- even 7 years post. She also wanted me to do a Body Scan where I would focus on my body, relaxing different parts from head to toe. This sustained attention on my body was also too much for me. We kept hitting walls. Some of my issues with my body and pain were not relatable to most of those students. I was recommended to look into SSRIs, but at the time I didn’t have insurance or any way to afford it. It was a great service, but it was time to move on.
Eventually landing a solid career meant I could have normal healthcare. Finding the right SSRI was tricky, but once we found it, it was a whole new world.
My anxiety was 80 percent better. After over a decade of locked in fight or flight, I could finally relax. I think it was starting this SSRI all those years ago that made it possible for me to even begin mindfulness involving breathwork last year and I can still incorporate breath work today to elevate or decrease my state depending on where I was emotionally.
There are many forms of breathwork techniques- if they work for you. It’s important to stay within what’s tolerable and be honest with yourself, then be gentle with your answer.
In Matt Auryn’s *Psychic Witch* there are numerous techniques like elemental, solar, and lunar breathing. Some do well with square breathing. I was recently advised to utilize breath work to bring me back to equilibrium. If I was dissociative and numb, to extend the inhale and then breathe out. To bring myself back down from anxiety to breathe, hold, and extend my exhale.
Another way I enjoyed breath work in the very beginning of my spiritual practices was to take advantage of the mammalian diving reflex. In the tub, river, or pool, I would dunk my head and slowly exhale through my nose. The roaring bubbles would also drown out the sound of my heartbeat, which I couldn’t tolerate.
In *Consorting With Spirits* Jason Miller’s description of becoming your breath in meditation made the trance state click with me when I first started.
With my window of tolerance even lower than before, right now I gravitate to forms of mindfulness that involve movement, which has proven to be helpful for those of us with ptsd. I like yoga, where I can look at and hear an instructor. I can also be extremely picky and choose the one who is most comfortable. I can’t do yoga in a studio, but I can do it in the safety of my home in front of a computer with no eyes on me. There’s many styles of yoga available for free online on youtube if this also speaks to you. You may also enjoy the free Tai Chi lessons there, too.
Sometimes mindfulness can be a challenge for well seasoned practitioners, too. A traumatic event could take place and cause an avid meditator to no longer tolerate their practice. If this is you, be kind with yourself. You might only tolerate short meditation sessions, or to meditate with your eyes open. Maybe you need to hear music, or a guide who will talk you through it. If you can’t tolerate it at all, put your practice aside or find a method that’s tolerable for you or take a break altogether.
Starting last year, my budding practice was what kept me here. I was experiencing an awakening during a stressful time. I stubbled a lot and still do, but my meditation game was starting to get a foothold. When I finally learned Ground, Center, and Shield I did it everyday. I started using meditation to work on my issues and got breakthroughs in how I was seeing myself and my emotions. Parts of me were coming back. I was finally able to feel my heartbeat in my chest (for short amounts of time) without terror for the first time in 16 years.
I was excited and passionate, but I’ll talk more about overdoing shadow work in another post. Just know that if you’re not mindful of where your tolerance is, you can re-traumatize yourself, which is why Shadow work is recommended to be done with a trauma-informed style of therapy.
Overall, mindfulness can be a great resource to those of us with trauma in order to heal, though it needs to be done in a way that’s sensitive to our triggers and catered to our individual needs or it can do more harm than good. You may recommend meditation to a friend, but they struggle with it. They may not tell you they have trauma, but use language like “I can’t focus”, “or “maybe it isn’t for me” because that’s easier to say. Maybe it isn’t trauma, but the majority of resources are visual and that isn’t accessible to them for whatever reason. There needs to be a sense of choice in how a survivor chooses to practice because we have already lost our autonomy through trauma. It may look a little different from how others practice. We need to feel safe in our practice and sometimes for us our body and minds are not safe. I think we should be sensitive to those who struggle with mindfulness, including *ourselves*.
**Additional information:**
What is ptsd -> [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967)
What’s the difference between c-ptsd and ptsd?-> [https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/12/14/the-difference-between-ptsd-and-c-ptsd-and-why-it-matters/](https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/12/14/the-difference-between-ptsd-and-c-ptsd-and-why-it-matters/)
Trauma-informed mindfulness (ft David Treleaven)-> [https://psychcentral.com/health/trauma-informed-mindfulness#can-mindfulness-cause-harm](https://psychcentral.com/health/trauma-informed-mindfulness#can-mindfulness-cause-harm)
What is a SUDS rating scale?-> [https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-suds-rating-3024471](https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-suds-rating-3024471)
What is astral projecting? ->[https://www.gaia.com/article/what-is-astral-projection](https://www.gaia.com/article/what-is-astral-projection)
What is Anphantasia?-> [https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-is-aphantasia](https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-is-aphantasia)
What is lucid dreaming? -> [https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/lucid-dreams-overview](https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/lucid-dreams-overview)
Skyfall Blind Dreamer MILD guide(lucid dreaming)-> [https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/](https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/)
Stephen LaBerge’s article on MILD(creator of MILD)->[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J0EwChB45i3bLFKsc3JUMUy6iaMyRkYic2QMRGjIg\_E/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J0EwChB45i3bLFKsc3JUMUy6iaMyRkYic2QMRGjIg_E/edit)
Other techniques on lucid dreaming-> [https://www.ldguides.com/techniques.php](https://www.ldguides.com/techniques.php)
**Books mentioned:**
Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven
Illusion Of method by Mark Gurrian
Psychic Witch by Matt Aurnyn
Consorting with Spirits by Jason Miller
**Additional Recommended reads:**
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Traumaby Bessel van der Kolk
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, PsyD
Soul Retrival by Sandra ingerman
