Trusting the Body in the Age of Dissociation

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Updated note 3/2023: I am still reviewing old posts from the archives of my hypnotherapy practice for ableism, be it thru inaccessible images & text or ableist language. Thank you for your patience with my process, and feel free to msg me with any concerns/call-ins <3

From Thursday’s eclipse newsletter.

The following musings are partially inspired by astrologer Timothy Halloran’s eclipse special report/holy rant this week as well as threads in the somatics field I’ve come across in the past (and unfortunately didn’t bookmark) discussing whether fostering a sense of safety in the body of marginalized people is ethical in a world that actively compromises their safety.

CW: Mercury, Mars & the sun are in Scorpio; we’re going deep. Mention of (mythological) rape, climate change, illness.

With a blood red lunar eclipse (the longest-lasting in 580 years) in Taurus upon us, I’m thinking a lot about the wisdom of the body. What it teaches us about the earth, ourselves and our society. Our bodies have the capacity to be highly attuned instruments. The sensations we feel within it keep us safe when we have agency to move as we please. When we do not or feel that we do not, we may experience the absence of sensation (dissociation/numbness) or an intensity of sensation (pain) that replicates our reality or perception of reality: immobilizing our (individual) movement and our (collective) movements. 

This particular eclipse is, in astro-speak, conjoined the fixed star Algol, often referred to as the Demon Star or the Eye of Medusa. The story of Medusa is a tragedy many can relate to—instead of punishing the god who violated her body in the temple of Athena, Athena dooms Medusa to life as a monster of dissociation. A head full of perpetual movement & venom she is unable to channel toward the cause, cursing others with her gaze to a literal experience of her metaphorical reality, unfeeling bodies of stone, to only be quieted by the ultimate dissociative experience, beheading. I’m not an astrologer, but I can feel her glare glowing within many of us, fixed on a world that would demonize her rather than the cause of the pain behind her eternal grimace.

Dissociation is highly effective at immobilizing. It can allow us the ability to forget the score the body is keeping because if we really added up those tallies our pain & rage could level entire civilizations. Imagine the uproar among the gods if Medusa & Athena had joined together to defend their bodies and their temple! Many of us don’t know what to do with that level of rage, or how to soothe that level of pain. Those that aren’t in positions of power that do have an idea are often vilified, criminalized, conquered. The true reality of revolution is not something most of us really sign on to. Gunpowder isn't a scent we seek. We want a comfortable home, a belly full of delicious food, soft linens, the soft skin of someone who loves us. (The kind of stuff a Taurus would fight for tho tbh ; ) 

Earlier this year I began a meandering journey around the country that I described as “traveling until my body tells me I’m home.” As I’ve wandered, I’ve had to come to terms with the dichotomy that has been within me of listening to my body while simultaneously shaming it for what it tells me. The internalized ableism of insisting that my body (which includes my brain) must adapt to and succeed within environments and realities it isn’t made for. The feeling sometimes that my psychic prescience is more alienating than liberating. Nearly 10 months in, I’m finally learning a more embodied listening. A growing trust in the messaging, grace and compassion for however inconveniently it may express, a love enough for my own company to not mind the sometimes resulting isolation. 

There is wisdom within many of our body’s impulses, “bad” habits, ticks. We understand now that often “ticks” are an adaptive neurological response called stimming that aids neurodivergent brains in soothing, processing, focusing. Someone with ADHD may struggle with conflict, addiction, impulsivity which we shame when it’s actually an ingenious way for the brain to receive the necessary dopamine to function & survive. My chronic pain, fatigue & neurodivergence has been my own wisest teacher and mentor, guiding me away from careers & creative projects that would have dissatisfied and dissociated, teaching me ingenuity, resourcefulness, presence and empathy.

Thing is, it really *shouldn’t* be on us to have to find meaning in all of the pain & trauma we experience, to have to use up our ingenuity on finding accessible and healthy sources of dopamine, nervous system resets, relief. It’s really fucking unfair that those of us with marginalized experiences or identities have to continually adapt to a brutal, illogical society made for straight, white, able-bodied, neurotypical people who often can't comprehend our experience. We've been given maps we can't follow, and anyway, the territory keeps changing. If we could redirect the energy we spend on surviving to imagining and creating new worlds informed by all of the incredible lessons of community care and inclusivity we’ve learned along the way, what a world this would be! (For anyone who can't relate to this, I hope you can hold compassionate space for those of us who can.)

Chiron, the wounded healer, is in Taurus in my 10th house of career & public reputation. Taurus, one of the 3 earth signs, is connected to the sensual (not necessarily sexual) experience of the body, creature comforts, stubborn in its insistence on being present to the experience of being a human on earth. I do not believe that our transcendent spiritual tools (which hypnosis can be) are meant to separate us from the experience of being human, which includes pain of all kinds. They instead can increase our ability to be present to the mess of it, not to avert our eyes from it as though it might turn us to stone. 

I’ve had sessions with clients where they were very confused initially by my use of somatic methods of hypnotic induction. They expected an escape from their body by way of focusing on an object outside of them (such as a pendulum, perhaps), an arm becoming as light as a feather floating in a breeze, a head that feels as light as a balloon, a tech-free virtual reality trance that allows them to escape the tedium or terror of their days. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to dissociate, and I don’t want to give the impression that I think that dissociation is always a bad thing. Sometimes those methods of induction are helpful. Dissociation is in fact an ingenious coping mechanism that is protective, sometimes necessary, and part of trusting the body’s wisdom is trusting that sometimes the parts we can’t feel or access are hidden from us to protect us. But is encouraging further dissociation at a time when we need to feel the impact within us of the toxicity of our culture in order to respond effectively to the crisis at hand even ethical? Is that ultimately healing or is that pacification?

What I’ve come to realize after this strange year of movement and adapting to environments not my own is that my body is not the problem. The way my brain works is not the problem. How angry I sometimes am and how “heavy” the subject matter I lean into is is not the problem. This is not to say there is no accountability within how we communicate and relate to others, but being mad in a maddening world is nothing to be ashamed of. (Be mad, be mad, be mad, it’s a mad world.) Being sick in a sick world is nothing to be ashamed of.  And anyway how much less sick and mad do we feel when we allow ourselves or others around us to validate our lived reality? When we realize that a world that refuses to acknowledge the pain of our bodies, which are linked to the pain of the bodies of others and the pain of the body of mother nature, is the actual problem? What if what we perceive as self-destruction is actually a form of psychodrama expressing through us the destruction of the planet we’re inextricably connected to? 

As Spirit said to me in a recent meditation, “WHAT WE NEED ARE CONTROLLED BURNS.” We won’t turn ourselves or our world completely to ash if we accept that there is a fire that absolutely needs to be lit, informed by the wisdom and intention waiting to be accessed within all of us. Learning to hear and act upon the whispers of our bodies is imperative, lest they become a cacophony of shouts threatening to be drowned out by a rush of water.  

I have some availability for virtual sessions, globally, if you’d like me to support you in connecting to and trusting the wisdom of your mind & body.

Please consider supporting and following developments with indigenous land & water protectors who are on the frontlines right now.

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*Images from L-R:

1) Photograph by Arielle Bob-Willis of a Black person with their hair in short twists in a red shirt, light blue pants, blue socks and black loafer shoes with their head down, face hidden and arms stuffed inside their shirt and down the outer side of their legs inside of their pants, creating a rectangular shape with their body. They stand on the edge of a dusty ocean cliff lined in shrubs and grass, their back to an aqua blue ocean that is slightly obscured by a white fog that mutes the blue sky.

2) Monochromatic photo collage by Helen Robertson of a young Black masculine-presenting person with short buzzed hair, suit jacket and white, button-up collared shirt, staring slightly to the left side of the frame. The lower three quarters of their face and upper quarter of their shoulders are obscured by a square of 25 smaller squares containing various snapshots of the portions of their body that the square blocks from view, jumbled in surreal order, creating, perhaps, somewhat of a simulation of Face Blindness.

3) Photograph by Fabrice Hyber of a person with brown skin and black hair in a red velvet suit inside of a transparent plastic bio-protective bubble suit, standing in profile against an olive green background.