I recommend doing diaphragmatic breathing for 5 or 10 minutes first before doing the exercise described in the following video, especially the last two minutes of the video. There is a description of this exercise in Dr. Peter Levine’s book, “Freedom from Pain,” (but in the CD that comes with that book, the following exercise is not included in that CD).
Crockett describes what Levine calls “pendulation” in the above video. Pendulation is done through a process called titration. Imagine sodium hydroxide (NAOH) and hydrocloric acid (HCL) (both caustic chemicals on their own) combined suddenly. This would create a massive explosion. In a metaphor for this paragraph, let’s say these two chemicals together represent the “fear and immobility” trauma pod and the “fear and rage” trauma pod (mentioned in the above podcast interview). By integrating and slowly dripping, drop by drop, the HCL into the NAOH, the concentration becomes completely harmless salt water. Similarly, through pendulation, one releases the immobility or rage (by imagining per the video, physically fleeing and feeling it happen IN YOUR BODY, then returning safely to your happy place,) and the fear dissipates leaving the trauma like harmless salt water with no excitability or strong charge in the body. (In chemistry, the HCL + NAOH solution becomes salt water NACL + H20.) The idea is that the bad memory looses it’s charge because the FEAR becomes differentiated from the immobility or rage.
Comments