We are meant to heal with anOther!

People believe they should be able to work out their struggles by themselves. Society instils a pressure in us to control ourselves, our thoughts, and feelings and when we can’t it’s a sign of bad character. We are so often instructed to self-regulate, not to rely on others, to just ‘pull your socks up’. We are told we are too sensitive, too dramatic, too emotional. Not being able to manage brings shame and sadness, and yet we are biologically meant to heal while in connection to another.  We are given self-guided mindfulness, how to sleep guides and apps to regulate ourselves. But evidence show us that it is actually the presence of the teacher that make mindfulness so effective.* 

Our human system is designed to respond and heal through connection with another. Bonnie Badenoch (2018) describes how we live in a left-brain society with the assumption that co- regulation is just a tool for even further autonomy and self-sufficiency and that dependency on another is feared. And yet we are built to seek safety in social engagement. Neuroscience is showing us how deeply and permanently we really are connected from the recognition that mirror neurons are found in the most primitive parts of our brain and this knowledge can prove that there is no distinction between the self and other. Badenoch suggests that we have artificially constructed a separateness dividing us from them. We are sold a story of outward independence and successful autonomy, but our neurobiology tells a different story. 

We our neural processes are deeply interwoven to those around us. We resonate with others, we absorb them, we mirror them, we tune to them. If their system is dysregulated, so are we, another’s wound triggers our unfinished healing, another’s warmth and compassion strengthens our neural system, and we are more tolerant. Essentially, we are never alone. So, when we attempt to only heal ourselves by ourselves, we can only partially or superficially take this journey. We have to swim against the current to heal, against the advice of our parents and scorn of our culture. Our body allows healing when we are in the guidance and presence of an attune responsive therapist / other, this is someone who has done their own inner work and then we can go on and do this for someone else.

*Flaxman and Flook 2012

Bonnie Badenoch (2018) The Heart of Trauma