Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations

Trauma-Informed Practices to Facilitate Growth

Christine C. Forner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781317560951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations explores the potential of mindfulness and explains why this level of developmental human achievement is so precarious within traumatic stress, especially traumatic dissociation. Chapters discuss the connection and disconnection between mindfulness and dissociative disorders and highlight the importance of gently creating a mindfulness practice for traumatized individuals. Readers will learn how to exercise the part of the brain that is responsible for mindfulness and how to regulate the part that is responsible for dissociation, and they'll come away from the book with tips that will help even the most dissociative client to reap the benefits of mindfulness practices.

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1 Mindfulness

Most discussions on mindfulness begin with a history of how it has become so popular in the setting of psychotherapeutics. These discussions are often focused on the meditation aspect that brings forth mindfulness and the mindful state. What is being discussed within this chapter is not mindfulness in relation to a religious or spiritual dogma, a lifestyle choice or a psychotherapeutic modality. The application of meditation in regard to mindfulness and dissociative disorders will be addressed later in the book. This chapter introduces a discussion of what mindfulness actually might be.

Mindfulness is like being able to swim; generally we can all do it, but one needs instruction, a place to learn and a lot of practice to achieve the skill. As with most things, the more you practice, the better you become at the task at hand. If you come from a culture that is close to the water, swimming will be part of that culture and will be easier to learn and more naturally acquired. If you come from a culture that is not near water, swimming might be much harder to learn and it may feel less natural. The ability is within most of us, and either the culture supports this natural ability or it does not.

Mindfulness is also very similar to the ability to talk and communicate, which is an innate human trait born within almost all of us; it is being around talking parents/people that we absorb, almost through osmosis, the early and lifelong ability to talk. Almost all of us are born with the capacity for mindfulness. If we are to be around others who are mindful all the time, then through absorption, learning and osmosis we will become mindful as well.

Mindfulness is a state that comes from many things. What is mindfulness? This is a question, depending on your training and experience, that can have a variety of answers. It is often easier to answer what it is not rather than what it actually is. What is commonly regarded as mindfulness might not actually be mindfulness. Paying attention is not mindfulness. Focusing on something is not mindfulness. Taking deep breaths is not mindfulness, calming down is not mindfulness, noticing something is not mindfulness, grounding is not mindfulness. All these items might be the starting point of mindfulness, but they are not the actual state of mindfulness unless you’re able to hold and sustain the focus and attention and awareness for an intentional amount of time. But it is also so much more than that.

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Mindfulness is an state of consciousness compared to normal every day consciousness. The contrast can be compared to the difference between being awake and that of being asleep. The brain is different in a mindful state than in ordinary consciousness; it is not just an act of the mind. This is a distinction that will be made several times over. Mindfulness is a grander brain task and is based on the maturity of the brain, not just an act of the mind. We all know that the brain and all that it does is so much more than just the mind (Fisher, 2014). When you are in a mindful state, you feel very connected to yourself, you feel very grounded and calm, you feel very insightful, you feel very blissful and you feel whole. The body is weighted and has solidity, you’re comfortable in your body and it feels like your own personal home base. You feel that you are safe and in control of yourself and your environment. You have an intuitive knowledge of what your feelings are and what they are there for. You know that the feelings are felt as an aspect of yourself, an extension of you, so to speak. You feel happy and often connected to a greater and grander purpose within the world and within your connection to others. You feel that you are balanced and stable because, when we are completely mindful, we are balanced, stable and regulated. We also tend to feel that we are loved and loving. We feel generous to ourselves and others, and we feel a connection to something much bigger than ourselves. We have compassion for ourselves and other people and we are in a state of self-care and care for others. A true state of mindfulness feels very lovely. The trait of mindfulness is a desirable state to operate from. When you are mindful, you are having an experience that is full bodied, that is embodied. Mindfulness is the practice of patience, non-judgment and awareness of yourself, of your whole self.

It is likely because of these experiences that many people assume mindfulness is a spiritual practice taken from a Buddhist or a Hindu tradition. Although almost every spiritual or religious practice uses some type of meditative tradition, it is not a chicken and egg situation. Mindfulness came first and more than likely led to spiritual curiosity, not the other way around. However, traditional mindfulness-based practices are not the focus of this book. This discussion on what is mindfulness, presented within these chapters, is not about understanding mindfulness-based practices. The distinction and discussion of mindfulness is based on what is neurobiologically happening when we are in the state of mindfulness. Mindfulness-based practices are formed on a primary understanding of what is happening in a mindful state and how to achieve that state. Mindfulness-based psychotherapy, mindfulness meditations and mindfulness-based stress reduction practices are all wonderful practices, but these current cultural practices of creating mindfulness are not the only ways that create the mindful state.

So what is this “state”? The general consensus is that mindfulness is the ability to have moment-to-moment monitoring of experiences (Lifshitz & Raz, 2012). This moment of inward observation is, in essence, mindfulness. Daniel Siegel, in his book The Mindful Brain, found through pooling statistical information from different measurements regarding mindfulness that mindfulness can be summarized into five different characteristics. The collective correlation of these different measures that describe the features of mindfulness can be seen as follows:

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1 non-reactivity to inner experiences;

2 observing/noticing/attending to sensations/perceptions/thoughts/feelings;

3 acting with awareness/(non)automatic pilot/concentration/non-distraction;

4 describing/labelling with words;

5 and non-judging of experience.

(Siegel, 2007, p. 91)

Mindfulness can take a single moment, a few moments, minutes or hours. As stated previously, mindfulness is a state, something that is fluid and, with enough frequency, will become a trait, something that is fixed (Fisher, 2014; Ogden et al., 2006). You can be in a mindful moment or you can be a mindful person and be aware of yourself most of the time.

According to Ogden, Minton and Pain, in the book Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, mindfulness is described as the act of:

[o]rienting and attending to the ebb and flow of present internal experiences. Awareness and attention are directed towards the building blocks of present experience: thoughts, feelings, sensory perceptions, inner body sensations, muscular changes, and movement impulses as they occur in the here and now.

(Ogden et al., 2006, p. 193)

Kurtz (2004) also describes mindfulness as:

[t]o be fully present to our [internal] experiences, whatever it is: our thoughts, images, memories, breath, body sensations, the sounds and smells and tastes, mood and feeling, and the quality of the whole experience as well as the various parts. Mindfulness is not our notions about our experiences, but [even] noticing the notions.

(p. 39)

Many of us on a regular day have many tasks that we are doing and many things that we are thinking. Our minds are most likely thinking about the required duties of the day, what lies ahead of us, what has happened in the past or a rapid mixture of all three. This is not mindfulness, but rather this is most likely ordinary, everyday consciousness. To be mindful in these moments would mean stopping what you are doing, sitting still and bringing your awareness inward while paying attention to what is happening inside your body. If you were to do that right now, can you feel activation or sensations in your body? Can you feel muscles tightening, your chest being heavy or tight, what is happening in your stomach, can you feel yourself inside? This inward focus is the beginning of becoming aware of what is happening for you neurobiologically. If you direct yourself from thinking in your mind to being mindful of what is happening for you in the here and now, this is the first step to becoming mindful. It is bringing the unconscious experiences into conscious awareness. What you are doing when you drop your attention from the external thinking to inner sensations, impulses and muscular changes, feelings and so on, is bringing your focus to what is happening for you in the present. This is the act of mindfulness. If you were to continue for a short while, you will notice that your awareness feels different, your felt sense of self feels different and that you become heavier, fuller and embodied (Ogden, 2014). If you were to continue to stay doing this focused attention, and sustain your awareness and have an objective, almost scientist type of stance to your inner self and experience, you will be moving towards the state of mindfulness. If you were to hold this state for extended periods of time, you will eventually develop the trait of mindfulness. If you were to produce this state constantly, you will become a mindful being.

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A practical example of moving from ordinary consciousness to a mindful state would be the example of driving home from work. If one was to have a quick inner glance at what one is thinking, one might notice that the mind is busy planning supper, planning activities for the kids, thinking what one might be doing this evening, reviewing what one might have done during the day, or perhaps reviewing a conversation with someone. Most likely you will not be paying attention to what is happening in your body, what you are feeling and what emotional information goes with these sensations. You most likely will not be including all of the past information and experiences that are influencing you at this moment, or the memories and procedural learning of what happened in the past that is also influencing you. When you stop and pay attention to the inner working of the body, you begin the act of mindfulness and awareness. If you were to stay in this state long enough, all of the internal information, past influences, procedural learning, meaning, context for you and the environmental influences and knowledge of your experience in the moment would unfold for you. When you alter your focus towards the inner experiences, external influence and past information, you are now focusing in a much more mindful way. This is a very expansive and yet incredibly specific exercise in self-awareness.

Mindfulness requires that we pay attention to minute details and the bigger picture and almost everything in between. Take for example muscle tension in the shoulders. Tense muscles can be communicating a whole variety of things. The body is continually sending information to the brain and the brain reacts to what is being communicated by the body to find homeostasis, the place of just right. The shoulders might be saying “we need to be tight and taut because of reason ‘X’ or our body needs to be engaged for reason ‘Y’.” There are constant chemical and electrical signals being sent from your brain to your muscles, and vice versa. Many of these communication signals are unconscious and if we are in a place of homeostasis, we don’t really need to know the full story of what our muscles are doing. We, as a creature of the natural world, need just the right temperature, water balance, food balance, waste production, oxygen, safety and security, entertainment, work load, etc. It is when we start to move out of the place of just right that we need to know what the issue or problem is in order to address it. Mindfulness is the intended mechanism for this inner communication to nonverbal sensory information.

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As stated previously, our bodies are geared and designed to be set up to be just right and the sensations are one of the only forms of communication that our bodies have to inform others and ourselves of what our needs are. At first, in infancy, it is just a series of instinctual responses and reactions; as we grow, the sensations become part of something much more sophisticated. Our needs are about what is required to have stable equilibrium. Muscle tension can be strain from use or requesting something we need. It could be strictly a muscular reaction from lifting something, or it could be part of a larger form of communication that something very important is needed, or several other things in between. Distinguishing between the two is significant. Muscle strain after something heavy is lifted is not as important as a muscle tension that is signalling that movement is required in order to keep ourselves safe from predation or starvation. One is a tension that can be rather benign and the other is of great importance. One can be a short-lived result of an event; the other can be a long-term communication as a result of many events. One might be an injury or one might be just a result of being used. Mindfulness can be a way to understand the difference. Being mindful of what is happening to ourselves on the inside is a very important part of embodiment, attunement and regulation.

The same can be said for emotions; in fact, the ONLY reason they exist is to help us be “just right,” to help us be in a place of okay, to be in safe and secure relationships with others, to remain safe from sudden death, to slow death and/or prevent us from being alone as children. The main purpose of emotions is to drive us to homeostasis (Panksepp, 1998, 2002). Emotions and what they are trying to communicate are rooted in basic brain stem and limbic reactions and interactions with our world and other people. Emotions are the lowest common denominator of all mammals that nurse and care for their young. As humans, these basic and simple emotional reactions fan out and over a lifetime become a labyrinth of human expression, personal and interpersonal communication, and identity manifestation. Learning to know what these reactionary bits of individual preference and inner articulation are leads to emotional intelligence and are a vital part of the human package. Realizing the nuances of these bits of neurochemical reactions to lived events and what it all relates to within our own and others’ needs is part of the job of mindfulness.

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Being mindful of what we feel, why we feel and what the purpose of these emotions are is important. Mindfulness is the skill of knowing exactly what one feels, why one feels it, where the emotion is coming from and when was the first time, or the many times you had said emotion in the past. Mindfulness is the skill of knowing and putting context and meaning to our emotions as well as understanding their purpose within us. There is a great deal of peace and regulation that comes from knowing what it is that one feels, why one feels the particular emotion and what that emotion is requesting. It is learning, in our childhood and in our adolescence, how to understand, identify, communicate, express, tolerate, control and eventually emote our feelings in a regulated way so that we develop the maturity of self-regulation.

Being mindful to the inner working of your self is inner attachment and inner attunement. It is also similar to being a scientist; to be objective without analyzing, thinking, stopping, avoiding or manipulating the actual inner workings of our physiology and emotional information systems. Mindfulness is about knowing what is happening inside and outside, knowing how to meet the constant needs that come up and how to do this all with a lot of ease and little effort.

So, when you draw your focus inwards, you can use your mind to gather information from the body and emotions to know why your chest is tight and why your stomach is churning (is this sensation related to the cues of hunger, or is it related to stress?). All of these physiological messages are communicating that something is going on. Many of these exchanges are nonverbal and unconscious. The mind cannot process every little automatic experience; it would take too much of our time. But the communication and life process that is happening are absolutely continual, every moment of every day. Mindfulness is the act of being aware of all of these unconscious moment to moment experiences (Ogden et al., 2006; Ogden, 2014; Ogden & Fisher, 2015). When we start to become mindful using the body information first, we can gain a huge amount of information as to what we are experiencing in the present moment. Being mindful is being able to stop thinking and begin to experience one’s self, from the inside out. This is an altered state of being that also tends to come, after some practice, with compassion and non-judgment.

It is important to conceptualize that although mindfulness uses the word mind, mindfulness is not just an act that is occurring within our minds; it is occurring in our whole fully developed brains. Mindfulness is a step up from thinking. The mind/thoughts are just one part of the whole. The mind is also just one tool that we use to keep us in a state of just right. The mind is only one part of our brain, and it is designed to slow down the back brain, to help us t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations
• Praise
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• 1 Mindfulness
• 2 The Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Mindfulness
• 3 Conceptual Understanding of Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders
• 4 Foundational Understanding of Dissociation
• 5 Childhood Trauma Constructed and Deconstructed: How Mindfulness Is Prevented from Developing
• 6 An Academic Perspective of Dissociation
• 7 Trauma, Dissociation, and Mindfulness: Trauma-Informed Practices
• 8 Meditation and Psychotherapeutic Meditation
• 9 Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations: Trauma-Informed Practices that Facilitate Growth
• 10 Medial Prefrontal Cortex Processing and Creative Meditations
• Index