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Client: “I don’t think this [Brainspotting] is working.” They continue to quietly focus on my pointer.
Me, later in the session: “What’s the level of activation you feel now about [client’s stated issue]?”
Client: “Nothing. Zero.”
Me: “There’s your answer.”
I woke up from a dream in which I was doing Brainspotting with Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, the “spot” being his intention to win re-election. The imagery was interesting, as I had Mr. Warnock focus inward on a circular image representing his achieving this goal. I felt confident and focused in the dream.
I just made my fourth small donation to his campaign. I hope I can help make this dream come true.
I can’t recall any other time where I dreamt of my work and national politics converging. Wild.
I am realizing how I have often just scratched the surface as a psychotherapist, the surface of so much talking to and with others. Entering further into a focused, attuned silence with clients has allowed them to drop down into deeper parts of their brains, beyond the verbal, eventually leading towards more lasting calm and clarity, among other states. This goes below the culturally conditioned back-and-forth of talking. Powerful.
Earlier today, someone thanked me for how helpful I have been to them. I replied, “It is my pleasure and honor to hold attuned space for and witness your healing.”
I generally enjoyed the Phase 3 (i.e., advanced level) Brainspotting training with David Grand, PhD that finished just hours ago. Three days of intensive online learning have left me feeling pretty tired. However, I was displeased with the poor time management of the whole thing. Dr. Grand spent too much time answering participants’ questions, at the expense of shortening breaks, including our lunch time (on two out of three days), and having to trim back one, if not two, break-out practice sessions. I so value practicing treatment methods in order to truly learn and then apply them with clients. I felt a bit shorted by this missing out on some scheduled one-on-one practice time with other attendees.
I left the end of the training seventeen minutes past the time it was supposed to end, whilst Dr. Grand was beginning to answer “just” two more people’s questions. I privately informed the main training assistant that I needed to leave. I then logged off shortly afterwards, bothered at the lack of closure but tired and needing to get home.
At one point, on the third and final day, I had to ask Dr. Grand to show the steps of a certain technique after he had skipped doing so, opting instead to go right into a demonstration with a training participant. At least a few others besides myself were left confused with what the actual steps of the technique were. He’d had to skip showing us them because, again, Dr. Grand had taken too much time to answer questions. My and others’ particular query could have been naturally answered if he had stuck to the schedule.
Frankly, I think it’s a group/class facilitators’ and their assistants’ responsibility to set time limits and stick to them. Many people love to engage back and forth on and on, including asking questions and having them answered, and most certainly so with someone they highly admire. I think I take time management as a given in trainings because I guess I’ve been spoiled by instructors and their assistants almost always keeping to a set schedule, anticipating the difficulties of doing so, and effectively communicating with us course/training participants about time management challenges. Such effective communication includes actively involving participants in choosing how to proceed with a needed schedule change, and preferably not down to the very last minute when any choice/s then often end up feeling forced on participants. Time management is a crucial organizational component of a well-run class or training.
This training’s time management was sloppy and neglected, which, for me, was simply unprofessional and disrespectful to us participants. I will be commenting about this issue on the course evaluation form whenever I happen to receive one.
I continue to grow in my capacity to listen. It’s about attunement, attuning my whole body along with my ears. It’s about how and where I listen from, namely from a place of open curiosity and compassion. Often, my busy, agenda-filled mind distracts me away from listening, but I return, constantly, to attuning to the person before me and resuming listening. And any feedback I give to the other comes from a place of accurately attuning to and hearing something(s) they have said. I have not perfected non-stop attunement and listening, and I probably never will, which is ultimately fine. But, I am getting better and better at more readily returning to attunement and listening.
The same applies inward to myself too, attuning and then listening in to what my body– which includes my brain– is saying.
Some nine plus months into doing Brainspotting (BSP) with most of my clients and experiencing healing from it for myself, I’ve noticed how BSP allows more space and focus for processing of, well, anything– more than any other treatment approach I’ve learned thus far.
I do find that Internal Family Systems (IFS) continues to be my main framework or lens through which I view my clients and their challenges. However, BSP facilitates faster processing for people with their true Selves and inner parts. This synthesis of approaches has led me to feel more effective as a psychotherapist while many of my clients get faster positive results in their treatment.
The more I clear away internalized negative beliefs about myself and feeling states that accompany these beliefs (e.g., “I’m not good enough”), the more I clearly understand how vital it is to minimize and, where possible, avoid spending time around anyone who relates to me from a place that reinforces these negative beliefs. I will not automatically return to any past relationships tainted with emotional toxicity. I would need the other party in question to indicate some significant changes having happened in themselves, demonstrated by them freely admitting to any hurtful statements and actions they had said and done to me and expressing remorse over these. I would then gladly admit to any I had said and done to them and apologize. That would be a healthy start.
Initiating the making of amends is a courageous act. Over the years, I have made it a point to do this where and when I can, when doing so would clearly not cause any harm to the other party. This has been very healing to do, even when the other person has received my amends with some reservation. It has still felt like the right thing to do.
I try to be vigilantly mindful around stopping my automatic habit of “othering” people here and there, including whole groups of individuals. It’s part of an overall mindfulness practice for me to maintain and improve upon. This is something for everyone to consider doing.
I have a Masters degree while my husband has no college degree. But, his ability to figure out mechanical stuff like how to operate the DVD player with our three remotes or how to fix a household appliance never ceases to impress me. I have no patience or focus for such things, but, over and over again, he sure does. Also, his visual-spatial capacity/abilities surpass mine. He envisions how to set up and/or remodel a room with ease.
Intelligence reveals itself in so many ways. I honor and respect my husband’s expressions of brainpower which show up time and again. Any comparing between us of who’s “smarter” is pointless and ridiculous.
The Practical, Fanciful Pagan 