The woman on the tightrope: the storms

I have used the clouds on the metaphor to represent "storms" and the things that hinder progress across the tightrope.

The third group work session based on the tightrope is: Things that can hinder progress (the "storms")

Group discussion was based around the following sets of questions:

The nature of the “storm”

1  .How do we know when the “storms” are approaching?

     (a)    What feelings tell us?

Some feelings women have identified have included: wanting to run and hide and fall into a corner; uncertain and unsure; abandonment; fear of the unknown; angry and scared; a sense of foreboding.

      (b)  What other warning signs are there?

Some other warning signs identified have included: instinct; reading other people’s moods; watching the reactions of others.

2.  Here are some dangers and hazards that can be present in “storms”:

• Unpredictable swells of fear
• Clouds of fog and tiredness
• Bogs of guilt
• Quick sands of self-doubt
• Flurries of clouded judgement*

 *these descriptions have been taken from Journeys of freedoms: responding to the effects of domestic violence – see more information below.

3.  What other dangers and hazards are there?

Some of the other dangers and hazards described by the women in the group have included: lightning strikes of damaging comments from others; rain of game playing; ice of aggravation and baiting from others; hail of other people making us doubt ourselves (either subtlety or directly); crashing waves of others setting us up for their entertainment; snow of patronising and condescending people; wind of meddlers and back stabbers.

The point is then made that these dangers and hazards are NEVER the fault of our “boat” and that the damage has been done to us by others.

Navigating through the “storm”

1. What things do we do to get through the “storm”? (The responses from the women in the group are included in italics under each of the strategies)

       Acts of resistance

Standing up for ourselves; staying away from unhelpful people; not giving ammunition to others; using self-talk to challenge guilt and self-blame.

      Things to protect ourselves

Cutting off communication from unhelpful people; talking to people we can trust; going to counselling; not listening to the unhelpful voices of others.

  Ways to comfort selves/ make selves feel better

Exercising/ going for a walk; offload writing; letting ourselves cry; looking after ourselves and eating nutritious food; finding something we like to do.

    Deciding when to let our boat “drift” or when to go into a “port” and rest

If we need to let our “boat” drift too much we can slip back; we need to go into “port” (safe place) and rest when it all gets too much.

Where our “ports” are

Being with people we can trust; at home; in our own comfortable places.

2.  What skills do we use to “stay afloat” and where have we learnt these skills?

Skills identified by women in the group included:  using helpful self-talk; having realistic expectations; stopping blaming ourselves; patience; trying to be positive; being active; making ourselves do things; having a list of things to do; trying new experiences; taking things a step at a time.

Places of safety and rest

1.  Where are our places of safety to go to when we feel fear (using the Island of Safety Worksheet as a prompt ?

The thoughts that the women in the group had about their places of safety are included in italics under each prompt.

         Ways we can create a safe space:

Have a hot shower or bath and meditate; go for a walk alone or with someone we trust; give ourselves space from difficult/ unhelpful people. 

   Where we feel most safe now:

Places where we feel free to be ourselves and not be judged; places where we can drop our guard.

 The times and places we feel most unsafe now:

Where the people we most want to avoid live; busy and crowded places; around people who judge us or who gossip about us.

  What we have done in the past to feel safe:

Moved; chosen who we spend our time with.

           Things we can change to help us feel as safe as possible:

Bite our tongues and be careful about what we share; cut off trouble-makers; give ourselves messages of confidence and self-esteem.

 An imaginary safe place we can go to in our minds:

We may need to be in a safe place first as we otherwise may need to stay alert to danger.

2.  Where are our rest spots (places where we can just be and not have to keep working and progressing)?

These are some of the rest spots women in the group used: time out spots; spending time with pets; concentrating on something we enjoy doing;  relaxing with favourite shows; watching music videos whilst riding an exercise bike; finding a quiet private space.

3.  What “angel” helper (from the Angels cards) do we want to take with us in the storms and what do we want from them?

Women in the group chose these angels: hope, energy; adventure (to do the things we haven’t done in the past; joy; love (to be able to seek this); assertiveness; insight (we keep gaining more and more); courage (to keep going and not give in); encouragement (of ourselves); respect (for ourselves).

4.  What do we do when the “storm” has passed?

The women in the group shared that they have:  patted ourselves on the back and acknowledged that we have survived; checked how we have grown and become stronger; acknowledged the sense of achievement; relaxed and rested; looked for a rainbow.

Journeys of freedoms

The article Journeys of freedoms: responding to the effects of domestic violence by Kath Muller provided some inspiration for this session. This article can be found in The International Journal of Therapy and Community Work 2005 Nos. 3&4 and can be purchased from the Dulwich Centre on this link:

http://www.narrativetherapylibrary.com/journeys-of-freedoms-responding-to-the-effects-of-domestic-violence-1.html

The woman on the tightrope: the back-pack

The back-pack can be seen as either carrying survival strategies or weighing the woman down with unwanted baggage, so it is important to ask the client what the back-pack represents to her and then to dialogue in relation to this if you are using this metaphor in individual sessions.

The second group work session based on the tightrope: coping strategies to help confused/ traumatised brains

In the more structured environment of a support group I have taken the back-pack to represent survival/ coping strategies and based group discussion around the following questions:

1.  How does it feel to know that we have coping strategies in our “back-packs”?

Some responses have been I feel relieved but unsure about how to put them into practice; I feel stronger and not quite so alone; I feel like I am struggling through the storm but there are friends to support me; sometimes we feel like there are no strategies in our back-packs; we may have things in our back-packs but we need to take them off and take out things to use them (a challenge when balancing on a tightrope).

2.  What coping strategies have we already used during the times when we were able to resist, or step around, the tactics of control?

3.  What strategies could we add to our back-packs? (These can include strategies that they have noticed others using, strategies suggested in the last session from the Illuminations cards, new ideas and strategies drawn from a provided list – see below).

4.  Which strategies have we found work best for us?

5.  What can we do to help these strategies grow?

Some responses have been the more we use them the more they will grow; by affirming what is in our back-packs; by joining groups and mixing with others/ finding other ways of doing; by sharing our strategies with others.

6.  From the Angels cards (see link in the post on The woman on the tightrope: the abused brain) choose some angels that we would like to take with us on our journey across the tight-rope, and include these in our back-packs.

Some of the angels chosen have been wisdom, friendship, serenity, courage (to keep going), encouragement (we sometimes need this from others), beauty (seeing inner beauty in ourselves and others), reflection (seeing how far we have come), patience (to understand that the journey is going to take time and to have patience with ourselves) and perseverance.

Using a creative and visual activity to reinforce the strategies

Near the conclusion of the session we made small booklets in the shape of back-packs, and the women recorded in these, the strategies that were relevant to them individually.  Ribbon was stapled to the back of the booklet to form the straps and the covers were decorated with papers from scrap-booking supplies.

A list of coping strategies

• Making sense of our experiences by finding an alternative story to the perpetrator’s story
• Remembering those people who have given us power and tapping into their messages
• Recognising control tactics for what they are
• Isolating ourselves away from annoying people and staying away from known triggers
• Creating a safe spot in our homes/ changing our surroundings
• Creating a safe spot to go to in our minds/ being in a safe place emotionally
• Reconnecting with others and being around positive people
• Reconnecting with the parts of ourselves that were made invisible by the trauma
• Holding onto confidence and belief in ourselves, being our own boss and giving ourselves permission to do things instead of asking
• Remembrance of loved things we have lost and allowing ourselves to mourn for them
• Standing up to ‘power over’ and recognising projection as a tactic being used against us
• Hanging onto hope for the future
• Challenging self-blame and guilt
• Re-focusing on good things and living in the moment (mindfulness)
• Putting the past in the past and using thought stopping when needed
• Processing things in our heads
• Keeping ourselves healthy by exercising, eating nutritious food and getting enough sleep
• Comforting ourselves when triggers occur or when we have nightmares (or seeking comfort from others)
• Offloading feelings responsibly by writing them down and then destroying them or talking them through with someone we trust
• Using breathing and relaxation strategies for anxiety and using stress management skills
• Distraction/ zoning out/ playing computer games/ doing puzzles
• Having the courage to keep working on healing
• Setting ourselves a challenge to learn or do something new
• Finding out accurate information about our rights and services we can use
• Thinking positive and borrowing positive thoughts from others
• Seeing mistakes as opportunities to learn or create something new

The woman on the tightrope: the abused brain

Many women who have lived with domestic violence say that emotional abuse causes them far more long term damage than physical abuse, and the metaphor of the lady on the tightrope recognises this by including “the abused brain”. Much has been written on the impact of trauma on the brain and Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery led the way in recognising that living with domestic violence is a traumatic experience.

A great resource

 The Illuminations cards, produced by the Kyabra Community Association Inc, consist of 12 cards depicting various  control tactics and 12 corresponding cards outlining skills that can be used to resist each tactic. The cards are available from:

http://www.lighthouseresources.com.au/bookshop/cards/illuminations/

Tactics include the venomous snake of poison minds, the well of put downs, the rotten branch of consequences, the barking dog of blame and accusations, psychotic cyclones, the sweet talking candy cane, the hour glass of restrictions, the forest of financial control, the razor wire spiral of isolation, the palm tree of possessiveness, the vulnerability spotting telescope and the school of tactics.

The first group work session based on the tightrope: emotional abuse

This session is based on using the following questions as a structure:

1. How does it feel to be able to see through control tactics? (Stones have feelings too cards are used here and these are available from Innovative Resources – see the link below).

 Some responses to this question have included  I can smile, but I still feel a bit off balance; I feel angry and frustrated that they think they can control me and that it is normal to do so; I feel proud and try not to let it get to me, but need lots of strength to hold it off.

2.  Many things that others do to us can leave us with a confused/ traumatised brain. From the Illuminations cards, each person chooses a control tactic that they recognise as having been used on them, and then shares this with the group.

3. Each person chooses a response card that reminds them of skills that helped them survive or resist this control tactic, and then shares this with the group.

4. What things have we done to free ourselves up from these controls? 

 Some responses to this question have included living our lives in ways that work for us; having the courage to come out and tell others  the truth about our experiences; having the insight to see through “nice control”; getting rid of bad rubbish out of our lives.

5.  What things have helped us to clear and heal our confused/ traumatised brains? 

Some of the responses to this have been getting out, mixing and trying new things; humour; getting away from toxic people and situations; doing things that give us confidence and belief in ourselves. 

6. What strengths do we have to help us heal from the damage caused by control tactics? (Angels cards are used here and these are available from Innovative Resources by following the link below)

http://innovativeresources.org/

Domestic Violence: the woman on the tightrope

In her book Dragon Slippers Rosalind B Penfold used the metaphor of a woman on a tightrope to portray the issues women face when deciding to leave domestic violence and to recognise that the journey after leaving is fraught with challenges.

A Social Work colleague and myself later redrew the metaphor and added to it by including a child and “the invisible man” (to represent the perpetrator), and we have both used this metaphor extensively with our clients.  I have also used it to devise a group program for the Women’s Support Group I was facilitating at the time.

How the metaphor can be used

The metaphor is useful to use as a whole in dialogue  with women living with domestic violence or with those who have recently left their partners.

Conversations can be had about:

• How it felt to live with the violence
• The impact on the children
• Where they are in relation to the tightrope now
• Honouring the past and the times that the tightrope may have been too unstable, or the storm clouds too severe, causing them to return to their partner
• The things they are carrying in their backpack
• Their picture of their desired future -- what the tree represents
• The impact of the "invisible man" on their lives now
• What protective factors are represented by the helmet
• And any other issues that the metaphor suggests

The metaphor

Expanding on the metaphor

In subsequent blogs I will draw on the group sessions I devised, to focus on particular aspects of the journey across the tightrope. Stay tuned!

Autumn

The seasons are often used as metaphors for the challenges of living, and autumn is an apt one for the shedding of used baggage.

Although we have already moved on to Winter, Autumn is still lingering in the leaves on the deciduous trees.

The temptation to allow used baggage to dominate

Just as trees cloaked in their autumn hues stand out in their environment, used baggage can become quite alluring and noticeable against the background of our lives. It can this take up a lot of time and attention by dominating our thoughts as it lingers in our minds and memories.

It takes courage to allow the leaves to fall

Isaac Bashevis Singer's story of Ole and Trufa (A Story of Two Leaves) is about the two remaining leaves (and these are the strongest) hanging from a twig, who support each other to hang on through winds and storms, until one day the wind blows Ole from the tree, leaving Trufa grieving. However Trufa eventually falls as well, and finds that her new life has caused her fears and anxieties to vanish, and that she has entered a new spiritual world.

The story can be found on this link:

www.psychologytools.org/assets/files/Ole-and-Trufa.pdf

Although this story is about death and life after death, we too can find new ways of being if we allow the used baggage to fall away.

Reflecting on experiences, learning what we need to from them and moving on

Stephanie Dowrick suggests asking these questions: 

1.     What is familiar here (is this a pattern)?
2.     What were my intentions? What was I hoping for or wanting?
3.      What actually happened?
4.    How might this have looked from the perspective of whoever else was involved?
5.     What can I see now that I didn’t then?
6.    What would I do more of –or less of – another time?
7.   What insight have I now gained?

Now literally “close the book” on the experience.

Reference: Choosing Happiness: Life and Soul Essentials Stephanie Dowrick, Allen and Unwin, Australia, 2005

Her book can be purchased from Booktopia:
http://www.booktopia.com.au/choosing-happiness-stephanie-dowrick/prod9781585425822.html

An exercise in leaving negative messages behind

•  Gently shake your feet and legs, hands and arms in turn, and finish by gently turning your head from side to side to relax.
• Breathe deeply three times.
• Close your eyes and visualise a beautiful secluded beach. Blue sky, sun and the sound of waves.
• Think of a message you are carrying that you would like to leave behind. Now take your first footprint in the sand and visualise the sand absorbing this message – imagine being free of it forever.
• Go through other messages you are carrying that make life hard for you – and watch the sand absorbing and swallowing up all these bad messages – imagine being free of them forever.

      Now go and paddle in the sea, refreshed and healed.

These are just a couple of suggestions about ways to encourage unwanted baggage "leaves" to fall from the tree. What ways have you found to be helpful?

 

Some more good resources for children's relaxation

A good book

Indigo Dreaming: a Magical Bedtime Story by Amy Hamilton, with illustrations by Kelly Jervis (Joshua Books, Buddina, Qld, reprinted 2012) takes children through progressive muscular relaxation with Indigo, the Rainbow Pixie, as the petals of an enchanted flower close over him one by one.

I purchased it through Booktopia:
http://www.booktopia.com.au/indigo-dreaming-amy-hamilton/prod9780980361780.html

Relaxation CDs

The Let's Imagine series encourages children to relax through fun, fantasy and music by using guided imagery. The CDs are produced by Magic Music in Western Australia and have been around for so long that I have original copies on tapes. They can be purchased directly from Magic Music at:

http://magicmusic.com.au/product-list/

Hope

Hope is a main factor in keeping us living and moving along our journeying into the future. It is essential in our work with clients (we need to believe that change is possible, however small), but it is also important to generate hope in clients (so that they can find courage when discouraged and/ or believe that life can become better, or at least more bearable).

Helping other possibilities emerge

I like this acrostic that was presented in the Doing Justice and Respect workshop, conducted by St Lukes Innovative Resources, which I attended many years ago.

The link between change and hope

Hope is the thing that allows us to move forward into change, but noticing change also generates hope, meaning that, not only do they work together, but they fuel each other as well.

The future orientation of hope

Hope does not necessarily take the form of excessive confidence; rather, it involves the simple willingness to take the next step. Stanley Hauerwas

The main goal of counselling is to encourage hope back into people's lives -- hope that things will improve or, if not, that our clients  will find the strength and courage to keep moving through the present and along their life's journey.

For some hope may be about moving step by step towards major changes in their lives, but for others it may be about smaller gains.  For instance, those suffering physical pain  may hope that trying a new medication regime will make the pain more manageable. In either case it is hope that allows moving into the future.

Looking outward for signs of hope

Often hope is found by looking outside of ourselves, rather than having an inwardly self-analytical focus (although good processing of personal issues can sometimes generate hope). We may borrow signs of hope from nature, or from other people whom we deem to be good role models, or we may see hope in the world around us. The photos I have used in this post are all metaphors of hope.

A metaphor for hope

It occurred to me that knitting a pattern is a good metaphor for hope.

Knitting involves taking a tangled ball of wool (many clients relate to describing life confusion as tangled threads);

 moving on stitch by stitch (we can only live our lives step by step);

starting to see the beginning of a pattern (we may begin to see changes in our lives resulting from our efforts);

but continuing on to see the full pattern emerge (we need to persist and keep moving forward for new life patterns to emerge);

and then shaping the pattern to make something useful (once we have formed new patterns in our lives, they may need to be shaped to fit the other parts of our lives).

Remember that most voluntary clients present to us with the hope that spending time with us will somehow make a difference in their lives.

Relaxation exercises for children

When it comes to working with children, relaxation exercises are a lot more fun.

Physical relaxation

The exercise found in the link below is one which I have used with a number of children. I have found it more beneficial to just do three of the parts at a time, and these can be varied between sessions.

https://depts.washington.edu/hcsats/PDF/TF-%20CBT/pages/4%20Emotion%20Regulation%20Skills/Client%20Handouts/Relaxation/Relaxation%20Script%20for%20Younger%20Children.pdf

I devised the table below as a quick reminder to children about the parts of the exercise:

Relaxation exercise reminders

Body part	Action
Hands and arms Arms and shoulders	Squeeze a lemon and then let it go Be a cat stretching and then relaxing
Shoulders and neck	Be a turtle pulling its head into its shell and then coming out again to relax
Jaw	Chew a giant jawbreaker bubblegum ball and then relax your mouth
Face and nose	Wrinkle your nose and forehead against a pesky fly, and then relax when it flies away
Stomach	Squeeze through a small, tight gap in a fence and then relax on the other side
Legs and feet	Push your feet and toes down into the bottom of a deep mud puddle, then step out of the puddle and relax

Mental relaxation

The Pathways to Resilience Trust provided this exercise in their handouts to parents of children going the Fun Friends Program:

Lie down comfortably and take 5 deep, slow breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Imagine you are breathing in calm happy feelings and breathing away angry and sad feelings. The wind is blowing the sad, worried and angry feelings far away from you. Now make your muscles as hard and stiff as you can, then relax, shake your arms and legs gently. Tense and relax again.

Now imagine your favourite outside place to be – imagine all the fun things you can see, all the sounds you can hear, all the beautiful scents you can smell in your favourite place; and all the tastes of the yummy foods you can eat and drink in your favourite place and how the grass, water or sand feel on your skin. Help them draw their favourite place.

The blog below has many exercises to fit many situations:

http://kidsrelaxation.com/blog

Breathing

The Pathways to Resilience Trust  introduced me to Milkshake breathing as part of their training in conducting the Friends Program. 

This is the reminder sheet that I devised for children to whom I taught it:

Milkshake breathing

Breathe in deeply through your nose to make your tummy rise and fall.

Breathe out slowly through your mouth.

Get a plastic tumbler and put some water into the bottom of it.

Put a straw into the water and breathe out slowly and gently so that you make gentle bubbles without spilling the water.

When you feel sad, angry or upset or very excited breathe in slowly through your nose and out through your mouth 10 times in a row (pretend you are doing milkshake breathing).

Here is the link to the Pathways to Resilience Trust:
http://www.pathwaystoresilience.org/

And don't forget that blowing bubbles can be a fun form of controlled breathing!

Relaxation exercises

There have been many versions of relaxation exercises devised over the years, from back in the 1990’s when it was trendy to conduct Stress Management sessions (often based on the manual Teaching People to Unwind).

 It seems to me that we now have three main types of simple relaxation exercises – those based on physical relaxation, those aimed at mental relaxation and those targeting breathing. There are, of course, more complex exercises based on mindfulness and yoga etc.

Physical relaxation exercises

These are mostly about progressive muscular relaxation, where muscles throughout the body are tensed and relaxed in turn, and are based on the theory that when we are stressed we tend to tense muscles somewhere in our bodies.

A script is provided in the link below:

http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/docs/ACF3C8D.pdf

However, I suspect there are now more enticing ways to relax muscles, for instance massages and spa baths.

Mental relaxation exercises

There are a multitude of versions of these, ranging from short calm down versions to lengthy deep and more complex versions. I have found that it is best to choose one that is useful and meaningful to the individual who will use it, and one that will fit into their lifestyle. Some require the reading of a lengthy script and thus need to be done with another person or an audio aid. Others are easy to remember and can be carried in the mind to use when needed.

 The main caution I have found with mental relaxation exercises is that those that take people to an imaginary place of relaxation and then leave them to enjoy that place tend not to work for those who have a lot on their minds, as they leave minds free to wander back to thoughts of fears and anxieties. Whereas exercises that encourage the concentration of thoughts on particular words or images can give us time out from these troubling thoughts.

The current basic formula for creative visualisation exercises is to imagine a place where we feel safe and relaxed and then use our senses to bring to mind how it looks, smells and tastes, and the sounds we can hear. This can also be done by concentrating on a pleasant object (e.g. a leaf or a flower).

Of course, it does not help to be too realistic with these images. For instance my experiences viewing beautiful waterfalls would include: annoying flies and biting insects, encountering snakes along the way, knowing that I have to navigate back up 409 steps (requiring lots of puff stops, otherwise known as photo opportunities), landing in an undignified heap on a slippery board walk, becoming saturated in a rain deluge and hauling myself over huge evil black boulders (with no defined track) at Jim Jim Falls, amongst other things. However, the waterfalls were all lovely.

Targeting breathing

Slowing down breathing and breathing more deeply are also ways to relax.

Controlled breathing technique

1. Breathe in (without taking a deep breath) and hold your breath for a count of 5.
2. When you get to 5, gently breathe out saying to yourself “relax” or “calm”
3. Then just breathe in and out slowly, through your nose, counting 3 with each breath in, and 3 with each breath out.
4. Breathe this way for about 10 breaths, and then start the cycle again by holding your breath and counting to 5 (step 1)
5. Continue this controlled breathing cycle until all the symptoms of over-breathing have gone

From “Taking care of yourself and your family” John Ashfield 11^th edition published for Beyond Blue by Peacock Publications 2010.

www.bloomtools.com/files/53/TakingCareofYourselfandYourFamily.pdf

This can be made much more fun by doing it whilst blowing bubbles through a bubble wand. The deep breaths in make a lot more air for blowing, and the slow breathing out creates larger and more numerous bubbles. And, if it is done with others, there is the added bonus of laughter, which is also known to be a great for relaxation!

My favourite relaxation exercise

 Based on Betty Erickson's Self-hypnosis script:

http://www.ericksonian.info/Self%20Hypnosis.pdf

This is a really easy to remember exercise once it has been tried a few times, but it is also very effective as it uses three senses and will help you to focus on the here and now.  If you are having trouble sleeping at night you can do this exercise with your eyes closed and for the things you can see, just keep repeating “I can see the darkness before my eyes”.

Look around where you are and name 5 things you can see, but don’t dwell on any of them. If you can’t see five different things it is OK to name the same things more than once.

Now listen and name 5 things you can hear. Once again, don’t dwell on any of the sounds, and name the same thing more than once if you can’t hear 5 different things.

Now name 5 things you can feel (e.g. a breeze on your face, your feet on the floor, your heart beating, your clothes on your body etc). And again, don’t dwell on any and name the same things more than once if you need

Now do the same again, but with 4 things i.e. Name 4 things you can see. Name 4 things you can hear. Name 4 things you can feel.

And now with 3 things i.e. Name 3 things you can see; name 3 things you can hear; name 3 things you can feel.

And 2 things i.e. Name 2 things you can see; name 2 things you can hear; name 2 things you can feel.

And 1 thing i.e. Name 1 thing you can see; name 1 thing you can hear; name 1 thing you can feel.

P.S I find that I need to be in a safe and pleasant environment in order for this to work, and if I combine it with walking outside in the fresh air, then it is more beneficial. It did not work for me when I was lying in Emergency in a state of hypertension, as there was  nothing soothing for me in this environment.