“The bones don’t get cast when they break.
We tape them—one phalange to its neighbor for support.
(other things like sorrow work that way, too—
find healing in the leaning, the closeness)”
Twenty years ago I worked with a two year old boy in an early intervention program. He would arrive in a car seat van and show up in a nearly catatonic state –unable to move or talk. I would carry him from the van to the hallway outside of the classroom where he would lean against me and put his head on my shoulder. He wouldn’t say anything and he wouldn’t move—for about ten to fifteen minutes. He would just lean his body against mine. And then gradually over the course of time, he would regain energy—and then suddenly he would pick his head up, and pull away and head into class—fully revived.
His leaning was tangible, physical. But, all healing requires leaning. Perhaps a different kind of leaning: leaning emotionally. Leaning relationally. Leaning towards another in a way that you may never have done. And certainly never had trusted.
I believe healing requires leaning because trauma, especially repeated trauma, creates protections or defenses that you come to rely on to support yourself. And since most repeated traumas are repeated relational traumas the protections that are put in place are typically ones that keep you away from the support of people: you shut down, you keep to yourself, you put on a façade, you never ask for help, you push people away, you avoid emotion.
This is what makes healing from repeated trauma so tricky—in order to heal—you have to risk giving up the things that have helped you feel safe—you have to risk letting go of your protections to let help in. And that’s where leaning comes in. You psychologically or relationally lean on another person—you let them hold your experience with you. They aren’t fixing the problem. They aren’t fixing you. In the way that, as the poem above explains—your broken toe isn’t healed by the toe next to it that supports it, but it is healed because of the toe next to it that supports it.
I have found the concept of leaning helpful because there are actually incremental ways of learning it that can begin with trusting gravity, before having to trust in another human being. You can have people learn the experience of leaning weight in a chair, or a hammock. Learning what it feels like to trust being held before you trust in the holding capacity of another human. Mindfulness practice can be a way to learn to rest, and lean on, your own thoughts, rest and lean on your own breathing.
It may be that because our vestibular systems and our limbic systems are connected, that this learning is bi-directional. You can learn to lean physically—and this will help you to lean emotionally or relationally. Or you can come to the work with a solid ability to lean in relationships with a secure attachment—and this is exactly what we know about a secure base—we have more trust in the physical world to hold us.
While the popularity of the trust-building exercise of ‘trust falls’ gives the impression that you can learn this kind of thing quickly. But you don’t. Learning to lean is an incremental form of healing. It is learned with constancy and consistency. It is best learned in increments that feel challenging, but not terrifying. Why? Because anything that is closer to your experience of trauma will trigger you to lean on your protections—and reinforce them. But smaller challenges will help you stretch into something new.
Healing that comes from constancy build strength from the inside out. The healing that comes from leaning is a form of growth—it builds sturdiness. You begin to experience the world differently—you suddenly live in a world that has support—that has help—and you don’t hold yourself so tightly. You have a different range of motion. You have a different way of listening.
Some practices to find the healing in leaning:
Physical Leaning:
When sitting in a chair with a back: lean your weight into the chair and notice it holding you up. Try to let the chair support you.
Lean into a couch, the floor or your bed: notice what it feels like to let go of the tension in your body.
On a walk, find a sturdy tree, and lean your back against it: notice what it feels like to have this being support your weight. Breathe deeply.
Emotional/Relational:
Use a journal to write down your experience. Lean into your capacity to say what is true for you, even if you aren’t ready to share it.
Pick the person who is easiest for you to talk with and share some part of your experience this week that maybe you don’t typically share. Something you hoped for, were afraid of, were disappointed with, were sad about..
Work with a therapist, a coach, a group to support your healing or growth.
© 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD
Rajagopalan A, Jinu KV, Sailesh KS, Mishra S, Reddy UK, Mukkadan JK. Understanding the links between vestibular and limbic systems regulating emotions. J Nat Sc Biol Med 2017;8:11-5.
Kim Blaesers Poem, About Standing in Kinship In: