Working with Shame is a High Altitude Climb

“The last 300 feet to the summit you would think is only 300 feet but at these altitudes (28,700 ft) the amount of effort that you need is exponentially increasing in difficulty. It is not a gradual increase in difficulty. It is exponential. The last 300 feet takes one to two hours to climb….It doesn’t seem difficult, 300 feet. Down here it take 10 minutes to walk that, but up there it is a very slow and arduous process. You breathe six to eight times, and then you take a step and then you breathe six or eight times, often you just think about taking another step, you breathe six or eight times and then you finally take that step. It’s quite a physical or mental effort just to think about taking each individual step. That’s how you have to break the summit down. You can’t look at the whole ascent. You have to break it down into small sections and into tiny little steps.”
— Ed Viesturs

There are times when you are healing when the hiking is okay—bumpy and rocky, but okay. And there are times when it is steep, both up and down. But trauma work is often a high altitude experience. The air is thin. You have to work very hard and not make it very far. You need an experienced guide and some strong ropes. And there are some places where you are working hard to just put one foot in front of the other.

Trauma work is almost always shame work. Trauma creates shame; if you have experienced trauma, you have experienced helplessness. You have experienced yourself at your worst. And shame is the painful experience of being seen at your worst, of feeling badly about yourself. People who have lived through trauma don’t get to have the illusion that in a bad situation they would be heroic: they have lived through a bad situation and they know what they did and how they responded—and most of what most of us do is survive. And survival is good. But we come out of it feeling bad because we weren’t who we would hope to be in that moment, we were people surviving trauma. And it can get us all, child or adult. It doesn’t matter if you were a child who witnessed domestic violence, or an Iraq veteran who had to shoot dogs.

Yes, trauma work is shame work and shame work is hard. But in trauma work, it is really a sign of success. Actually, if you hit shame in your life, even if you haven't experienced trauma, you can take it as a sign of success. If you are feeling shame, you are hitting the high altitude part of the climb. You are near the top of this particular mountain. If you are feeling shame--you are almost there! But there can feel so, very, far, away. Like the quote above, the last 300 feet on Everest takes two hours to climb. It is one step. Breathe six to eight times. Another step. Breathe six to eight times. Another step.

And this is just what it feels like when you have hit that place in your healing. When you have hit upon some part of your story where there is still shame, where you get dragged back in to the most painful part of yourself. You can feel everything get heavy. You can feel like it is a tremendous effort to get even one word out of your mouth. It can feel like even one word is dangerous or painful. You can feel the lack of oxygen and your own lack of energy. You look around wondering why you thought this climb was a good idea, you wonder if you will actually make it, you wish for a way out, any way out, other than going forward.

But you don’t realize, even in that moment, that the only way out of it is doing exactly what you are doing. The only way to the summit is putting one foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Slow, slow progression at a pace that allows you to breathe.

And the only way forward with shame is one word at a time. A slow, slow progression of words that allows you to keep moving, keep getting the story and feelings out, and keeps you connected to the person you are talking to. The thing about talking about shame is that you do actually move from one place to another. It is a small shift, like the 300 feet, but it can make all the difference in the world. When you climb that last 300 feet on Everest you have a 360 view of the world. You have perspective. You have your own view of the world. And that’s what you get when you talk about your shame.

Talking about your shame allows you to move from the story of shame to the whole story. Trauma isn’t just about what happened. A whole trauma story includes who you were before, the circumstances of the trauma, what happened, how you protected yourself and what didn’t happen—and what has happened since. All of that is your story. And when you move from shame, from just one part of the story, to the summit—to where you have a 360 view of your whole world, and not just your shame—then something in you gets transformed. You gain back some of your inner landscape.

It is so hard to remember, when you hit that tough place in the climb, that the summit is so near. That you need to keep heading toward it, and not run away from it, or simply flop down, giving up. It is so hard to remember that in your worst moments of climbing, your team is there for you, and is inspired by you. You feel slow and awkward. You feel like you are barely moving. You feel like you are letting them down. You can't believe that this far in to the climb you can feel this badly. But your team is also on the summit. They know how hard the terrain is. They have been with you for the whole climb. And they know that the summit of this climb isn’t as far away as you think it is.

This high up on the mountain you can forget that it was actually your hard work over a long period of time that got you to this conversation, that got you this close to your ability to see this whole thing from a new perspective. When you feel shame, you feel bad, and this can make you feel like you did something wrong—when nothing is further from the truth. When you feel shame in your healing work, take a deep breath and remember that you have worked hard to be right where you are. Take a deep breath and simply go one word at a time. Move at the pace that you can. You will get there. You have already survived the worst. Look around at the world beyond those difficult steps, a world you can see because of your hard work on this long journey. Look around. Your world is so much bigger than any one story. 

© 2015 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD 

For more from Ed Viesturs: Go

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Rerun: All Trauma is Not the Same

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We talk about and treat trauma as one thing. As if it were like other diseases that we believe to have one origin or one set of symptoms. But psychological trauma is not one thing. When a traumatic event happens once, as in a car accident or a gunshot wound, the normal system of psychological defenses is temporarily overwhelmed. Like water breaking through a levee during a great flood, your body is flooded with adrenaline in such large amounts that the system actually builds new receptors to take in that extra adrenaline.⁠1

When the adrenaline levels recede, the extra receptors create an ultra-sensitive environment where the smallest amount of adrenaline is immediately picked up by the brain and nervous system—producing what is known as the ‘startle response.’ In short term trauma, the system is overwhelmed, and the effect is an over-sensitized system. It is as if the body becomes allergic to anything that might remind itself of the trauma—any loud noise, any fast motion. The psychological and physical after effects of a one time trauma, if they persist for at least a month, are diagnostically called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD is defined by a set of symptoms: startle response, flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, difficulty eating, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, or persistent avoidance of anything that reminds the person of the traumatic event.⁠2 PTSD sometimes describes the aftereffects of short term trauma, but something it never seems to capture is the full picture of long term trauma. A soldier in Edward Tick’s War and the Soul states, “PTSD is a “name drained of both poetry and blame.” The soldier he quotes prefers soldier’s heart because it is a ‘disorder of warriors, not men and women who were weak and cowardly but….who followed orders and who at a young age put their feelings aside and performed unimaginable tasks…PTSD is a disorder of a good warrior.⁠3 A strong reaction to trauma is the normal response, and frequency and duration of trauma is the single greatest predictor of PTSD symptoms. 

A single terrifying event can be traumatic. How then can we understand the experience of multiple terrifying events? A car accident that lasts only 45 seconds can trigger all the symptoms of PTSD and require significant psychological treatment. So, what happens when trauma gets repeated relentlessly? What happens when it is not one frightening event, but a frightening event every night for years? When there is a one-time trauma, the system gets caught ‘off guard’ and overwhelmed. But imagine how exhausting it would be to get ‘caught off-guard’ and overwhelmed every night for most of a childhood, or ten years of war? For better or worse, the human body and brain are designed for efficiency and survival. And survival means finding the most efficient and protective way to cope.

Understanding healing from trauma means respecting and honoring the ways we learned to cope—the ways we learned to protect ourselves. These were crucial and brilliant strategies that got us through the worst and gave us the chance to be in the position we are now—in a position to heal from it. Take some time today to reflect on the protections that you used to survive. Reflect on them and thank them for their loyal service to you.

© Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD 2015, originally published 10/9/14

1 Amy Banks, Stone Center Writing.

2 DSM

3 Eward Tick War and the Soul. p. 100. 

One Acorn. New Landscape.

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Out of small things, big things grow. Out of one small change, many changes can come. Healing happens because you say one word, you make one move, you try one more time. An acorn produces an oak, which in a good year can produce 70,000 – 150,000 acorns. One seed. One tree. Exponential change.

Exponential change. But not immediate change. Oaks take a long while to grow. They are lovely young trees, but you don’t get the full effect for at least a decade, sometime two. But they are growing every day. And it is hard to remember that we are growing everyday too. It can be so hard to see.

One seed. One new behavior. One new belief. One act of faith. And faith in trying something new. Faith in your own voice. Faith in the world to hold you and nourish you as you grow. The beginning act is so small, but it is with an eye to something bigger. An eye to something that will take hold, will root, will reach all the way to the sky.

One seed. One acorn. When it takes root, it is an oak. Maybe a few acorns. Maybe a few oaks. Here’s the thing you can’t imagine: these changes combine. They mingle. The become something new. These acorns grow. They become a forest. They change the landscape. They change the ecosystem.

Many years ago I braved asking for a cup of tea. It was a form of help I could ask for. And today when I was stuck, I called a colleague for help on a work problem. Asking for tea was the first acorn I planted. Today’s request was one of her many seeds. It is slow and nearly invisible work to change the way we behave, to change the way we protect ourselves in the world. But it is not small work. It is life changing work. It is landscape changing work. Plant one new acorn. Make one new change. Your inner landscape will never be the same.

© 2015 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD

 

One Foot in Front of the Other

“Walking…is how the body measures itself against the earth”
— Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Today after a day of working in the outskirts of a city I don’t know, I asked the hotel desk attendant if there was a park nearby to walk in. The day was warm by our winter’s standards and I was craving fresh air and a walk. She asked if we knew the area and I said, “No.” And then she printed out directions to a food store. If we went past the food store and turned right, the park would be on our left. So my colleague and I headed out.

Apparently we weren’t the only people who felt spring in the air and headed to the park. The place was packed!  With old people using walkers, with people walking dogs –very large and very small. There were lots of parents and children. All the children were running. All the parents were trying to keep up and saying all sorts of things to get them to walk instead. As one child responded, “I’m trying to walk, but I just keep running” as she hurtled herself downhill.

I laughed when I heard her say that thinking that running usually requires more effort for me and I wished I could easily say, “I’m trying to walk, but I just keep breaking in to a run.”

And then I got to thinking about change and growth and healing and realized how familiar that feeling really is. How you start something moving. You start changing and the momentum can pick up. And you feel yourself moving faster than you thought. And it is exhilarating, but also scary. You are new to this change, this growth, and your ‘new change legs’ feel wobbly. But you can’t stop, even as as some ‘inner scared parent’ is running behind you exalting you to slow down.

My need to walk today felt like a need for any other food or nutrient I have ever craved. Earlier this week I talked about the need for routines as part of healing. And for me walking can be such a routine. In some ways it functions as such a source of organization or grounding, literally, feet connecting with the ground. And especially in times of change, or growth or healing walking feels like a requirement. When I am away from home, or having a hard time connecting with myself—walking becomes my connection. There is something so reassuring about the fact that one foot follows the other. You keep putting one foot out, and the other follows. You feel the earth beneath your feet. You feel your arms swing. You feel the air in your lungs. You feel the air on your face.

One foot in front of the other. The rhythm and repetition are soothing. One foot in front of the other. It is the body’s perfect mantra. A way of practicing change. I can go from here to there. I only have to put one foot in front of the other. I can change where I am and how I feel. I only have to put one foot in front of the other. It’s not a matter of doing something huge. It’s just one foot in front of the other. And yet, if you keep doing it. If you keep walking, the steps add up. I know how to do this. I can speed up. I can slow down. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  And you will see, you try to walk, but you may just find yourself running.

© 2015 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD