Barbara's Healing Journey

(Written by Insights Into Healing, Barbara)


I have been asked how I’ve gotten to where I am now on my healing journey.


Years ago, I was taking Paxil to overcome anxiety, but I wasn’t getting any better.  The Paxil only worked for six months to a year, at which time my doctor wanted to increase the dose.

Before too long I realized “if I take another pill it’s going to kill me or I’m going to lose my mind.”  I knew the pills weren’t fixing things, only making them worse.


Then a friend told me about Dr. Paul Canali of Evolutionary Healing Institute.  I made an appointment, not really knowing what would happen.  That was in September of 2010.


During my first time on the table there, I was directed to look inwardly.   I started listening to my body, and information started to come.  It was mindboggling.  The memories came pouring out!  When I voiced the memories, something within me changed.  I felt it immediately.


The impact was so great that I asked Dr. Canali, “Can you teach this work to me?”  He said, “first let’s work on getting you better.”  Dr. Canali was my guide to bringing me into my own body – to discover what I had stored there.

In that self-discovery of memories, there was a rhythm in my body that changed things.  It changed me.  It was like opening a valve.  The pressure was released, and all this tension and sickness came pouring out.  It was so simple, I could laugh about it!


Getting off Paxil wasn’t easy.  It took a couple of months.  I tried to quit cold turkey, but I got so sick that I thought I was dying.  I had to wean myself off the medication, but eventually I did it.   From there I continued to make lots of progress.


Looking back, I realize that if I can heal, anybody in the world can.  Healing others became my goal.

I’ve been working with Dr. Canali for several years now, helping others to get the kind of results I did.   I believe there’s nothing in the world that we cannot heal, which is something I will discuss further in my next blog post.


This is my first column here on the Mind-Body Thoughts blog.   Join me every other month for more insights into healing. 

See you next time!

 - Barbara (Insights Into Healing)

Read all of Barbara's Columnist Posts

(Editorial assistance by Jeff Lemlich)

 

---

Barbara

Columnist

Unified Therapy

Visit Barbara's At:

Facebook

---

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly and Barbara

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

Introducing Barbara and Insights Into Healing

I'm so happy and proud to announce the addition of another regular columnist to Mind Body Thoughts.  Barbara Lempereur is one of my long time friends who has helped me be more than I am, and helped countless others to help heal their lives.

One thing I so love about Barbara is her compassion, caring, and love for other people.  It is a pure love and compassion, without judgment that makes Barbara a true healer.  It is what has helped me find my way through difficult moments.

While I realize that Barbara has experienced some difficult things in her life, she has found a way to continue on.  Yet, she didn't stop there because she took that pain and found a way to help others walk through those difficult moments they were facing.

She has a very grounded view of healing and what helps get us through the moments that sometime seem impossible.  It isn't pie-in-the-sky thinking, but something that makes sense and is easy to grasp on to.  She uses her own experience to reach a healing hand out to others.

Barbara is also an assistant working with Dr. Paul Canali in Miami, Florida at the Evolutionary Healing Institute.  Through the work of Dr. Canali, she has learned and helped advance Unified Therapy.  It is the work that I've also been involved with and is life changing when it comes to healing trauma.

So, it is my pleasure to introduce Barbara Lempereur as the new regular columnist on Mind Body Thoughts.  Her blog posts will be appearing every other month, and I think the insight into healing that she will bring will benefit everyone that reads it.

So, help me welcome Barbara to the team!

For more information on Barbara and the articles she writes, go to the page on this blog, Insights Into Healing.  Look for her articles around the alternating fourth Monday of each month.

Trauma Keeps Peace Away

I know other people have written much more in-depth about this subject and one of them that comes to my mind is Peter Levine in his book, "Waking The Tiger".  One of the most horrible things that trauma does long term to a person is it keeps the peace away.

Yes, we can begin to find peace, but trauma keeps the body revved up.  It keeps the moments of when the trauma happened in the forefront of our brain as if they are still happening.  Because of the impact of these moments, it keeps our nervous system on edge and our brain from slowing down.

If you read the book, "Waking The Tiger", you'll see a very good and healthy explanation of what trauma does to the body and the mind.  It is the basis for much of what I have learned along with what has physically been demonstrated to me in my own body through healing with Dr. Paul Canali of Unified Therapy.

You can compare trauma to walking through the jungle.  There are predators out there and if you don't watch out, you'll become lunch for an animal in the jungle.  Let's use being hunted by a Tiger as Dr. Peter Levine discusses.

Your body is revved up...

In trauma, the Tiger pounces and attacks just like walking through the jungle.  Even if you somehow escape the Tiger or the trauma, your body is still revved up like the event is happening.  We've all had those moments that shocks or frightens us and it takes a while to come down.  Trauma does the same thing, but to a much greater degree.  Trauma keeps us in that revved up state.  The long term impacts of it can be felt and see in the mind and body for years after it stopped. 

Even long after the trauma has passed, it is as if we are still experiencing it.  This is why reaching out to support groups, therapists and other body-centered trauma healing is essential.  It isn't about being weak, but learning and discovering how to let go of the residual impacts from the trauma.  It is about finding ways to heal from our inner core.  It is about reclaiming all that we are and learning how to show trauma the door.

As if things never ended...

I went through intense torture and childhood sexual abuse.  It shaped me in so many ways.  While I've done extensive deep body healing from the trauma with Dr. Paul Canali, there are moments that the triggers act as if the Tiger is still chasing me.  Of course, I know that the events have stopped, but in my mind and neural pathways, they are still acting as if things never ended.  Trauma keeps us in that state.

The body needs to be a central part of continued healing because even though we try to disconnect, forget and numb, the cells, muscles, nervous system and the brain still remember.  They don't forget.  Unless these parts of our bodies are healed deeply, they will continue to rev up the nervous system from the trauma and keep peace away.

Deep peace is difficult after Trauma...

If your body is on full alert because it believes there is a Tiger waiting to pounce, most likely you are not going to be able to lay down and take a nice restful nap.  It is the same with trauma.  As long as the trauma remains within us, true and deep peace will be difficult to grasp.

One of the things that I so love about Unified Therapy with Dr. Paul Canali is that after you've gone through a moment of deep release, the peace that ensues is unlike anything we have ever felt.  It is such a deep peace that you beg him to just leave you in that place, not wanting to come out from it.  It is hard to describe it, but in the process of healing through this work, when you do feel what I'm talking about, it will blow your mind!

In healing, we have to learn how to understand that the Tiger is no longer chasing us.  Our minds will make us believe that it is while keeping it from our conscious thought.  Our minds try so hard to protect us that we often stay in numbing and disconnectedness.  It is in reconciling these things that we will find further healing into a life that is truly ours.  It is in these moments of healing that we will discover more of who we are and that is a beautiful thing.  It is a place of peace.

Trauma may try to keep the peace away, but the more we work to heal, the more we will discover it.  Healing is about taking our life back from those things that stole it.  It is about finding that awareness which leads us to a greater peace than we've ever known. 

#HealTrauma

---

Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

---

The Choice To Go Into Pain

In a recent situation, my friend was experiencing headaches that were very severe.  They were in the migraine stage.  I have been through these in the past and I know first hand just how rough they can be.  After a few days of the headaches not going away, we made a trip to see Dr. Canali in Miami, Florida.  Granted, we had not been there in several months so both his nervous system and mine were way out of balance.

It would have been easy to go into the fear of the situation and chase every remedy known to man.  Some probably felt that we needed to do this, but because of our experience with the concepts of what Dr. Canali teaches, we knew there was another route.  This method of treatment is effective because it honors and respects what is going on within the body.  It recognizes that if the nervous system is out of balance, things like headaches and other pain will appear.

In addition, I had done some body work on my friend and while it didn't completely alleviate the headaches or pain, it took him from a 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10) down to probably a 5 or less.  He was able to sleep through the night, rather than scream out in pain.  In my mind, I knew that this was nervous system related and not some other thing.  I listened to my intuition.  We were also in touch with Dr. Canali as to the course of treatment.

Startle Reflex

How many times have you been sitting there minding your own business when some sound brings you up out of your chair? Or maybe some quick movement past you stops you dead in your tracks. Even a sound such as an explosion or fireworks or a moment in a song could ignite something deep within you. It could be a flash of light or about anything but whatever it is, you stop and try to determine what is going on.


What Is The Startle Reflex / Startle Response
The startle reflex is something everyone knows about. We've all felt it at one time or another. It is the response of our mind and our body from a sudden unexpected stimulus. It could be a sound, a flash of light, some event, a touch or a quick movement around us. There are many ways we are startled.

When started, our bodies go through many physical changes including contraction of muscles of the arm and leg, blinking, increase in blood pressure, respiration and breathing rate. While the muscles contraction responses generally resolve themselves in a matter of seconds, it often takes our breathing, respiration and blood pressure much more time to normalize.

Startle Response and PTSD
If there is an exaggerated startle response, it is called hyperplexia and is often seen in people with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Startle Response Video
Here's a great video depicting what happens in a person when a startle response is encountered. The video is about self protection but the beginning of it really shows in a simplistic way, just what the startle response does.

Startle Response from James Marwood on Vimeo.

My Startle Reflex Experience
One of the things I am learning through the Evolutionary Healing Institute with Dr. Paul Canali is just how important the "startle reflex" is to the healing of trauma. Through pendulation of the autonomic nervous system, one is able to begin moving through trauma that is stored in the body without becoming overwhelmed and shutting down. The startle reflex is one of the ways used to do this because the startle reflex kicks the system up into sympathetic mode and once dissipation has been allowed to complete, the body can then come back down into a more relaxed or resting mode (parasympathetic). By doing short bursts of stimulation and rest, the person is able to move through much more than if they were just brought into the trauma stimulus full force. Of course, it greatly helps the person going through this to be safely supported by someone that is able to be there in a grounded way without judgment.

One good way to measure the state of the nervous system is by use of a pulse meter. I use the one pictured to the left. There are times that a person feels one way but when you measure the pulse, you can quickly see if the person is in sympathetic or parasympathetic mode. If the pulse is going high and not dropping down, you are still in sympathetic and there is still arousal or stimuli within the body. Until that arousal or stimuli is released, the body will not be able to go completely into parasympathetic mode. This of course may not happen all at once and may take time to go further and further into it. With the pulse meter, there is no guess work as to what is going on in the body. The pulse of the body is real where what one may experience may not be truly what is going on.



Other Sources of Information

1) Wikipedia - Startle Reaction

2) Evolutionary Healing Institute: Autonomic Nervous System

3) US National Library Of Medicine - National Institutes Of Health: Fear Appears Fast

4) How Stuff Works: Startle Response

5) Trauma, Biology And Hyperarousal

6) Hope And Possibility Through Trauma

*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Seminar With Dr. Canali

Activating The Brain-Body Connection Seminar Series

Time: May 16, 17
Place: Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables, FL (Miami)

Click here for More Information

Post Traumatic Stress is responsible for more chronic pain, suffering and misdiagnosis than any condition on the planet. The Heal Trauma Save the World Project™ is about isolating reproducible and evidence based aspects of trauma and somatic autonomic regulation therapy to create a highly effective and reproducible treatment approach. There is nothing more important that a healthcare provider can learn than the secret of diagnosing and treating the traumatized nervous system. This seminar is open to professionals from all health care disciplines. If you want to be a part of something life changing, please join us for a 2-day seminar focusing on the application of Unified Therapy™ to cases involving traumatic stress.

Renzo, The Teacher

Note:

This is from a guest writer, Quayny Porter Brown. She is a good friend of mine who works with Dr. Paul Canali at Evolutionary Healing Institute. (read the following blog entry if you have not already read it - A Life Changing Moment)

She sent me this the other day about the loss of their dog, Renzo whom I've had the pleasure of meeting a few times. What she wrote really said a lot to me and I think it really fits the nature and purpose of this blog. So I'm sharing what she wrote with her permission and hope that it impacts you as much as it did me. Thank you Quayny!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(c) Quayny Porter Brown (1/9/09)


Suffering is not feeling pain or feeling despair or feeling sadness. It is not feeling it. It is resisting it. This is linked to fear of course. The fear to open oneself up to what we perceive is suffering. But it is not suffering to feel the pain of separation, and it is not suffering to mourn death or loss or a break up or a misunderstanding or lack of connection. It is not suffering, although we call it that. There is a difference in the type of suffering that is resisted and the type that is accepted. The type that is resisted requires judgment, repression, guilt, fear, among other qualities. If you are already suffering with a loss why expend the extra energy to resist the feeling, internalize it, destroy oneself with it, limit ones perception by denial. When you realize this there is less fear. There is now less fear because you have allowed yourself to go in and accept and feel whatever is there. Sadness then is sweet and wrenching but does not develop into despair. There is trust and there is faith in the process of living and experiencing what it offers. There is then a direct experience of not dying or collapsing from allowing yourself to feel what is there. Suffering as we come then to understand it is an opportunity for transformation. This is meant to be there. This is meant to tell me something. It is not that I am meant to feel pain necessarily, but it is absolutely true that I am meant to feel.

All week my chest has felt tingling and buzzing. Through the grieving and even before it I recognized that Renzo was teaching me. I have some regret that he had to die to do it, or, rather, that I did not realize his gift to me until he was on his way to die. I have been trying to be present all the time. My feet feel planted on the ground and no one is scaring me. If I fall into my old pattern of looking for approval I immediately apply my new and previously unrealized knowledge that there is nothing to fear so I do not need approval. Why is that. I guess because I am not afraid of not having the approval anymore, at least during these days of clarity.

I used to come home and Renzo was forever on top of me trying to get my attention. I used to brush him off and feel annoyed that he seemed to me to be so dependent on me. I didn’t want that. But no matter what I did or didn’t do, he was always there the next time with a happy loving attitude toward me as if each time I greeted him with the same love and unconditional acceptance. I see now why I rejected his loving advances to me. Why it seemed like a burden. I was afraid of his love, afraid to receive it, afraid to be responsible for it-of course that was an illusion because he was just as happy no matter what I did. Even with the fire trucks going by he would sing. If I did not sing he would come over and find me and look at me as he sang. He’d throw his head back and point his nose to the sky as he sang and sang. He’d stare at me until I did the same. He was trying to reach me, always holding a space for me to join him if I found it in me.

Before he died he was in the hospital and his hind legs were paralyzed. This is how he suddenly woke up early in the morning on Tuesday last week. He spent one night in the hospital and although he was not in pain, he was lying on the floor of the operating area and was not so happy there. The Doctor told me that he watched everyone though and got many pats. He was such a gentle creature, loving and giving. I see now that he was exercising my heart, perhaps not consciously on his part. But his nature, instinctual nature, finally broke through to me during his last two days.

I spent two hours with him the day he had to be put to sleep. It was in the morning and so I got time by myself with him. We just existed together. Him on the table on a stretcher unable to move much, and me standing by him or sitting and talking or crying, or patting or hugging him. I told him all that I had learned. Luckily I realized these things soon enough to say thank you to him for all the lessons he has taught to me. I asked him if he wanted to come back a race horse or a bird or a bumble bee. He didn’t do much but just rest his head on me. It seemed like he’d just like to be a dog. I fought with feelings of injustice at his short life and his sudden decline. And mostly my feelings of guilt about the things I didn’t do during his life. Somehow I just thought there would be more time. There was no more time. But there was time to just be with him and feel it all for as long as I wanted-the hospital did not rush me. I offered him some water with Rescue Remedy. He showed very little interest in it. I rubbed it on his paws. You might say I suffered with him, but you also might say I just grew with him as we went through this unexpected situation together. Together. That was the key, and the only key.

I left after two hours to go pick up the children at school. I asked them if they wanted to go again to visit (we had all gone the night before), and they said No. The night before we all had to sit on the floor of the operating room with the machines beeping and a dog on the table having surgery. It was a hard environment, but we all got Renzo’s head on our laps and his earnest stare into our eyes.

Later that night I met Wyatt at the hospital after he had had a chance to be with Renzo alone for a while. We just sat with Renzo, again on the table on a stretcher. I turned off the fluorescent lights and the room was much more peaceful after that. But Renzo was very calm and so he slept a bit on the table. When he woke up we were just there with him and patting him and crying intermittently. It was such a hard moment knowing that he needed to be put to sleep whenever we asked the Doctor to come in. I offered him Rescue Remedy again and this time he lapped it up, wanting more and more and more. He almost consumed a whole bottle actually. After that he just got very quiet and he lost interest in the remedy. I rubbed some on his paws now and then. We just stayed with him for a long time-maybe an hour after I arrived. He was calm and didn’t raise up his head that much. I told him that it is OK to go-that we will be OK without him and he should feel free to do whatever it is he needs to do. Also to let us know if he comes back to us in another form by some kind of recognizable sign. So I told him these things, and of course we both told him how good he was and how we loved him.

When the doctor came in she was very respectful and quiet and calm. She gave him three shots through his intravenous site. Before we knew it he was gone. He just lay there as usual, but limp and his eyes were open. He was still warm and we hugged him. Then it was time for us to go. In my mind came a picture of a little dog with pointy ears dancing about outlined in neon white. He was playing and saying to me not to be sad, that he can jump again now. Who knows if my mind made it up or if it was an image from some other place. It obviously doesn’t matter. The fact was I felt a little lightness and a sense that he was free of his crippled body.

We left the hospital and we walked up the street. The experience had brought us together in a different way than had been available lately. We walked for a while and then got in our cars to go home.

That night we had dinner with the kids and as we all sat together at the table missing Renzo we had one of the nicest times we had had in months if not ever. The children opened up with their own stories of this and that, and it seemed that we all had the feeling of going through life together, as strange as it does sometimes seem.

A Life Changing Moment

Shortly after I graduated from massage school, I had the opportunity to do chair massage for the faculty and staff at Southwood Middle School. A tragedy had hit the school when a student killed one of his classmates and friends during school hours. I was there with others as part of a day of healing for the teachers. One of the speakers was Dr. Paul Canali talking about how trauma affects us and how to watch out for the effects that we may see in others especially the children. As I listened to Dr. Canali speak that day, I was captivated because what he was sharing with others, was things that resonated deeply within me.

After his talk was over, I so badly wanted to connect with him but when it was my turn to speak to him, I could barely say anything. About the only thing I could think to do was hand him my business card because my voice was silent. Time went on and I didn’t really think about Dr. Canali again until I went to a local FSMTA (Florida State Massage Therapy Association) meeting. He was the speaker and that night I was sitting up front. As Dr. Canali talked, he kept putting his hands on my shoulder and using me as an example of what he was saying. Normally with strangers, I would have been crawling out of my skin and running out the door. I, however, knew that Dr. Canali’s touch was safe. Somehow I knew that and I was not afraid.

Fast forward to a workshop he held in July 2004, that I wanted to attend. Before signing up for the workshop, Dr. Canali and I talked by phone where I shared with him some of my past. When I got to the workshop, it was part lecture and part hands on training. Dr. Canali asked for volunteers and without hesitation, I said I would like to volunteer. Up until this point, I had not experienced his work like many of the others had, and I had no clue what I was about to experience. The moment on the table which seemed like only a few minutes was in fact over a couple hours and when I got off that table, I felt like my life was different than when I started. It was a powerful life changing moment and at the time I had no clue just how far this would go.

I began to see Dr. Canali for regular sessions because I knew deep down, there was much stored within my body that needed to be dealt with. You didn’t need to explain to me just how everyday life, every day stress, trauma and experiences find homes within our bodies. My body knew that first hand because I was paralyzed in 1991. Physically I had recovered from it but there were many hidden scars within me that had never been allowed to heal. I had plenty of current problems as well from depression, anxiety, frequent migraine headaches, a stomach ulcer, allergies and the list could go on. I never dreamed that a few years after this, my life would have changed in dramatic ways physically, emotionally and spiritually. I’m not the same person I was and this isn’t some surface changes in me. It is deep emotional long lasting changes.

While I still know I have a ways to go and I still have my demons I battle within me, I’m on my way to connecting to something that will carry me forward. I’m not even 100% sure I understand what that is today and that’s fine, but I see more of my path ahead with each day. Dr. Canali has helped me to understand myself more and see the power that I hold to make choices and changes in my life. He has helped me to become more aware of myself so that I can begin to experience life in an entirely new way. If you would have told me all of this was possible a few years ago, I would have probably laughed. Of course now, you don’t have to convince me because I’ve lived it and the truth of it resides with myself and my new found freedom and awareness.

With all of this said, Dr. Canali just launched his new website and it is filled with a lot of information. Some of the information is deep and may sail over your head when you first read it, but it can be a catalyst in your life. I urge you to go and check out the website and read it and learn all you can. Your life won’t be the same after this point.

The website is
Evolutionary Healing Institute http://evolutionaryhealinginstitute.com/