March 11, 2024 • 47 mins
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In this episode of our podcast, we delve into the transformative journey of blending shamanic practices with traditional psychotherapy. Our guest, Alex Solomon, a seasoned therapist with a rich background in both realms, shares their insights on the challenges and revelations encountered when integrating these seemingly distinct approaches to healing. They discuss the initial hurdles of incorporating spiritual practices within the constraints of conventional therapy settings.
The conversation takes us through the nuanced understanding of trauma from both a psychotherapeutic and a shamanic perspective, highlighting the concept of soul loss in shamanism and its parallels with psychological fragmentation. Our guest elaborates on the therapeutic power of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and its similarities to shamanic soul retrieval processes, emphasizing the potential for healing beyond mere coping with trauma.
We also explore the impact of repetitive trauma and the concept of complex PTSD, drawing attention to the compounded effects of multiple traumas and the importance of addressing them through both shamanic and therapeutic lenses.
Finally, we discuss practical advice for those recently exposed to traumatic events, highlighting innovative research on simple interventions like playing Tetris post-trauma and the importance of allowing oneself to feel and process emotions as a pathway to healing.
Links to additional resources
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
From Pixels to Peace: Harnessing Tetris for Trauma Recovery
Tetris used to prevent post-traumatic stress symptoms.
🌿 Feeling stuck or spiritually disconnected?
At Soulful Energy Medicine, I help you release energetic blocks, clear emotional pain, and reconnect with your true self. You’ll find a safe, grounded space for soul-level transformation through virtual healing sessions.
✨ Book your free discovery call: Soulful Energy Medicine
Foundation for Shamanic Studies: Explore here
“The Way of the Shaman” book by Michael Harner
Society for Shamanic Practice: Explore here
Connect
John@urbangriefshamans.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Grief rebels as it stirs deepwithin us, sparking a profound
resistance to a life devoid ofemotion.
It emboldens wildness andflashes with the power of
thunder, while remaining untamedand free.
As we learn, grief becomes theprimary emotion for the soul's
(00:30):
vitality.
Grief, like love, embodies lifeitself.
It resists, being gentle, andyet moves of so passionately,
leaving no doubt.
This emotion erupts from thewells of our soul.
In our podcast, we explore thisdefiance, embrace its wildness
(00:53):
and find peace within itsuntamed vitality as we live in
the hustle of everyday life.
Welcome to the Urban GriefShamans.
Join Patricia Jones, apsychotherapist, and John Moyer,
a retired paramedic, as weexplore the spiritual side of
grief.
In our episode today, you'lldiscover the powerful fusion of
(01:20):
shamanic practice and clinicaltherapy in treating non-physical
trauma, also known as PTSD.
We will also explore how thesedistinct fields intersect and
enhance each other.
My guest, alex Solomon, sharesfirst-hand experience and
together we explore thepractical challenges and
rewarding outcomes of mergingspiritual practices with
(01:41):
clinical approaches to trauma.
Let's join in on myconversation with Alex.
Alex Solomon (01:48):
My master's, I have a concentration in group
work, which I did.
I was told that the groupworkers were the fun ones in
this program which.
I think was the case.
We had some fun.
But thinking again aboutshamanism, right, it's not
something that's done in asolitary sense, it's something
that's done in communities.
(02:08):
A lot of my professionaltraining is really in the idea
of the circle right.
A therapy group is a circle andwe're sitting there and we're
joined together.
That hadn't really occurred tome until now, but there's a
similarity there, I think.
John Moir (02:26):
So when was that point that you thought that you
would just mix or bring yourshamanic practice and your
clinical practice together?
Alex Solomon (02:36):
That was a challenge for me because and you
and I have talked about thechaos of insurance in the United
States it's quite differentfrom your experience in Canada,
I think.
But insurance companies want topay for what they deem to be
evidence-based allopathicmedicine, which some of it is
(02:57):
based on research and some of itis somewhat arbitrary.
But, working in agencies andworking in non-profits that are
contracted with the state toprovide these services, I found
that there was a variety ofopenness to the administrations
that I worked for in terms ofbringing in these more shamanic
(03:19):
practices, these more spiritualpractices.
I never experienced clients notbeing open to it, but I had to
sneak things in a little bit.
So I never really was able todo a healing session or anything
like that in a treatmentsetting, which I would have
loved to do.
I think it would have beenlovely.
I think it would have beenlovely to do things like
(03:41):
drumming circles, to do singingand dancing, but it wasn't ever
something I was able to dobecause I think it's not
accepted.
John Moir (03:50):
There's some skepticism there.
Is it more?
Or is it just?
You just didn't fit the mold?
Alex Solomon (03:57):
I think it doesn't fit the mold.
I think psychology started verymuch as art and then it swung
into the direction of becomingscience, because there was such
a push to get us to recognize asmental health professionals and
say, no, we're just as good asyou doctors that treat
(04:17):
infections and do surgeries andset bones, we do something.
That's just as important andthat's true.
But where we've swung to is noweverything has to fit this very
specific mold of what it'ssupposed to look like and I
think we've lost the art of it.
(04:40):
And when I say the art of it itreally means a feeling aspect,
the somatic aspect of being ableto go where we feel guided with
a particular person.
And I think most therapists Iknow would say that, whether
they think of it in a spiritualcontext or not, that sometimes
we just have a feeling and weget pulled in a direction ends
(05:01):
up really opening up a newavenue.
John Moir (05:04):
From a healing philosophy standpoint, how does
your understanding of traumadiffer when viewed through a
somatic lens compared to apsychotherapeutic one?
Alex Solomon (05:13):
I certainly have a merged view at this point.
It's almost like I have twotrains of thought going at the
same time.
And I really do try and honor.
If someone's coming to me forpsychotherapy, I'm not going to
inject shamanism when it's notasked for.
I think that's rude.
I'd advise first that.
(05:34):
But when someone's coming to mewith trauma and complex traumas
is repetitive early trauma isreally the focus of my practice.
I do find myself thinking of itin terms of soul.
When I look at my trainingaround trauma, most of which has
(05:57):
been after my masters in allthe hundreds of hours of
training I've done around it,while they don't use the word
soul, I think there really isnot that much of a difference in
terms of thinking about it.
We talk about the self and theself concept, and how does early
trauma cause someone not to beable to have a cohesive sense of
(06:24):
themself?
And so, from a shamanic view,if we say this is soul loss, I
think it really fits togetherquite nicely.
And people will come in and sayI feel like I'm not whole, I
feel like a piece of me ismissing, and I don't think
there's conflict in terms ofthinking from a shamanic
perspective.
This is soul loss and from apsychotherapeutic perspective,
(06:47):
this is whatever we would callit.
This is fragmentation.
John Moir (06:51):
Whereas in a shamanic treatment would be a soul
retrieval, I guess in thetraditional clinical side of
things it would be the.
Is it EMDR?
Alex Solomon (07:03):
Yeah, so I've-.
John Moir (07:05):
Maybe explain that for our listeners that EMDR is-.
Alex Solomon (07:09):
Yeah, so I'll explain it as best I can Explain
it all the time.
So EMDR stands for Eye Movement, desensitization and
Reprocessing, and it's differentthan talk therapy in that it's
getting your brain to correctlyprocess a memory that has not
been correctly processed.
(07:29):
So we think of the memory asbeing unprocessed, in the sense
that past trauma feels like it'sstill happening in the present.
The memory is stuck and it'snot processed or stored
correctly.
So with EMDR what we're doingis using what we call bilateral
stimulation, which can be eyemovements from side to side, it
(07:51):
can be tapping, it can beauditory.
We're using that process to getthe brain to process the memory
correctly.
So it gets stored as long-termmemory and what it does is it
pulls out the negative emotionand the somatization that's
(08:12):
attached to it.
That's so distressing, and italso, through the way that we do
it and set it up, it can shiftthe belief that's attached to
the memory.
So people tend to have corenegative beliefs like it's my
fault, or I'm bad, or I'm notsafe, or I'm lovable, these deep
(08:34):
beliefs that are hooked intoall these different memories,
and so a big piece of what we'redoing is causing that to shift.
I'm lovable, I'm okay, the wayI am, I can keep myself safe.
And with EMDR it's really not atalk therapy.
There doesn't have to be anytalking at all.
(08:55):
It's a way to get the brain andthe body, because it can really
be quite somatic for people.
It's getting, it's looking fora state shift, and so when I
think of soul retrieval, peopletend to experience something
very similar, that they reallyfeel that something is different
(09:18):
.
And I think a lot of peoplethink that the best they can do
with trauma in any way, sotherapeutically or otherwise, is
learning to cope with it, andshamanism certainly teaches us
that we can do better than that.
And.
I think a lot of the newertrauma therapies not just EMDR,
but things like sensory motorpsychotherapy and in ego state
(09:41):
therapy, which I have a lot oftraining in as well show us
that's not the case.
We can do better than just copewith it when I feel triggered.
John Moir (09:50):
Now the EMDR.
Is it the sense that the traumais stored in a particular part
of the body or in the brain?
Alex Solomon (09:58):
Yeah, so one of the things we look at in EMDR is
where do you feel this in thebody?
And some people tend to holddifferent things in different
places and some people have justa part of their body where they
always feel that trauma.
It's often in the core,somewhere in the heart or in the
stomach.
But people hold things in theirarms, people will feel it move
(10:21):
around the body, right, and whenyou think about shamanic
training, you would call thatsomething else.
Right, feeling something movearound the body.
You would call that anintrusion and you would remove
it Again.
You see these parallels here.
(10:43):
But what happens during EMDR isthat there's an allowing and
allowing your body to releasethose things and allowing things
to shift within you.
So when I think about it from ashamanic perspective, I don't
know why I would call it aspontaneous soul retrieval,
because it's not spontaneous.
We are trying to do something,but the way I think of it is
(11:06):
opening an invitation, fightingthat part to come back and
creating an opening for that tohappen.
And often there's creating anopening for releasing and I use
a lot of metaphors with this andcan go after it more directly
sometimes but can you feel thatflowing out of your body?
Can you feel a releasing inthat part of your body?
(11:29):
So I really do think somethingsimilar is happening and I see
people experiencing things notjust at a mental level, but at a
soul level, even though we'renot talking about the soul.
John Moir (11:44):
I understand People have repetitive traumatic
experiences.
I'm thinking of my brothers andsisters in emergency medical
services, policing and fireservices, who have been carrying
many different types of callsthat they've experienced over
perhaps their working career,and there's a number of
(12:05):
different new traumaticexperiences that are piling on.
Would that be the right way toexplain it, or to suggest that?
How does one keep wrappingtheir bodies around this
traumatic energy and not lettingit go?
Alex Solomon (12:22):
And that's the thing with repetitive trauma
that there is a difference inexperience between what we would
call a single incident traumaI've had a really good life,
then I have this horrible caraccident and now I'm
experiencing PTSD from this oneincident and there's a
(12:44):
difference between that and arepetitive trauma, something
that's happening over and over.
It creates a differentexperience and that's what we
would call complex trauma andfolks that are experiencing
complex PTSD, which is not anofficial diagnosis.
(13:04):
There's a lot of debate aroundthat and has been for years.
But for complex PTSD, a lot ofthe time it's repetitive
childhood trauma because and wetalk about this shamanically too
how children have both put inboth world, so psychologically,
(13:25):
children's sense of self isinformed.
We don't come out as infantswith a full sense of self.
So having those repetitiveexperiences as a young child can
really distort your ability tolook at the world as a safe
(13:47):
place and look at yourself as aperson who is able to be in the
world.
And then, thinking about firstresponders, there's this similar
thing of repeated trauma andthis idea that it's inescapable.
It keeps happening over andover.
(14:07):
There's something to thatinability to escape over and
over.
That really compounds it, and Italk a lot about how trauma is
cumulative.
It's not these single separateincidents that our brains are
really good at finding patternsand they link these things
together and it can createreally severe belief systems
(14:34):
that make it very hard to be inthe world in a healthy way.
John Moir (14:38):
And other situations would certainly be like domestic
abuse or physical abuse,anything that's repetitive.
Even for the nursing staff, er,military people who have
multiple griefs.
Is that similar?
Because sometimes I wonder thatwhen we talk about trauma
(15:00):
non-physical trauma, I see,because that's where patrician
I've specialized is lookingmerging grief, awareness and
shamanism, and I find that to meit seems like it's one in the
same, that people who've had alot of trauma not trauma but a
(15:20):
lot of grief seem to have a lotof the symptoms that I hear when
I hear some of my colleaguesexpressing their trauma stories.
Any thoughts?
Alex Solomon (15:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
We talk about the differencebetween grief and traumatic
grief, and there's this ideathat there's and I don't love
the word appropriate here, butit's the word we tend to use
there's an appropriate griefprocess or a typical grief
process, and I don't knowanybody who really knows what
(15:54):
they're talking about, who wouldtry and medicate away grief or
therapize away grief.
Right, it's supposed to feel it, but having multiple losses and
even again coming back to firstresponders witnessing a lot of
death and this applies to combattrauma as well it creates this
(16:16):
really profound.
I just tend to describe traumasthat are linked together and
this is just my metaphor as astring of Christmas lights.
They're all linked together andyou can't just light up one
bulb, right, when you plug in,all the bulbs light up.
And so when something remindsyou of a trauma, it's not just
that one trauma that getstriggered, it's the whole string
(16:36):
of Christmas lights gets lit up, and so you get flooded with
all of this emotion and all ofthis somatic sensation and you
might not get a whole series ofmemories, but what it is, all of
those memories are lighting up.
And so that's very true ofgrief, that these griefs can
compound each other if youhaven't gone through the process
(17:00):
and if you haven't found Iwould say, found your peace with
loss.
I think that's something that wedon't talk about a lot in our
culture because we're so removedfrom death, we distance
ourselves from it.
It's not the way our ancestorswould have had caretaking elders
and then dying in the home andhaving grief rituals, and so
(17:24):
much of that is gone, and so youcan end up with this
interrupted process, and that'swhat trauma is right.
It's an interrupted process ofallowing your brain to complete
the processing of a memory, andthat happens with grief.
We have these interruptedexperiences that we don't get to
(17:45):
grieve, or we're discouragedfrom grieving, or we don't have
time to grieve.
Maybe you don't have time.
My last employer would give you, I think, five days off of work
for a parent in one day off fora non-parent right.
How could you possibly grievein that time?
John Moir (18:03):
And it's just like even in the first response
communities it's not masculineenough to grieve in public or to
.
If you have a good partner, itgets you through so much and if
you don't have somebody that youtrust or you feel safe with,
then you're certainly not gonnatalk about your deeper feelings.
And as the same, throughchildhood shame or being in a
(18:25):
grief of being rebuffed in aromantic situation, and these
are all called perhaps the smallgriefs that we just suppress
and we just keep building it upin ourselves.
And one of the things I reallyloved about Weller's teachings
was that unattended grief justbecomes such like lead and it
makes us numb and so that wejust don't do anything about it.
(18:49):
But we don't live a full life,we don't live a big life.
And then you have that biggrief that comes along like a
death of somebody really closeto you or and it just takes you
down.
But what it does, the big onealso opens up all the smaller
ones, and then you're being hitall at once with all these past
memories and it's veryoverwhelming.
Alex Solomon (19:11):
Right, and yeah, psychologically, we call that
flooding, which I think such alovely word for it, in a way,
because it's think about gettingknocked over by a wave.
That's what it is.
Yeah, you're making me think ofso much of working with my
folks who experienced childabuse is dealing with things
like abandonment and rejection.
(19:34):
And those are severe.
So we don't think of it as agrief because you're not
experiencing a death.
And I think we've limited theword grief to a very specific
thing, not allowed it toencompass things like losing a
job, losing housing, which I'vehad so many clients all of a
(19:54):
sudden homeless, all of a suddenunemployed.
What do we do with that?
And you go into problem solvingmode, and I'm certainly guilty
of that because I want to fix it.
I'm a problem solver, so howcan I house this person?
How can I help them income, howcan I help them find food?
But we have to remember it,that we have to deal with a
grief of it.
It's still a loss.
John Moir (20:16):
Exactly, and it's not just loss of a particular place
, it's also loss of the.
I don't know, if you mentionedidentity, who you are within
that community, and all of asudden you're thrust out of that
.
And now if you're trying toreestablish yourself in another
place, you start from scratch.
Sometimes, a lot of times,right, nobody knows who you are
(20:40):
or what value you have or don'thave, and that's a big grief for
a lot of people.
Alex Solomon (20:46):
Absolutely.
John Moir (20:48):
So, coming back to trauma and the you call it
complex trauma, how would youtake a shamanic approach to
complex trauma?
Alex Solomon (20:57):
So complex trauma is extreme soul loss from a
shamanic perspective, andespecially because it often
starts when someone is so young.
We're so vulnerable at that agefrom a soul perspective and we
talk about that sense ofidentity.
(21:18):
Psychologically we develop asense of identity over time and
shamanically we're talking aboutthe soul.
Our soul drinks ends as we getolder and as we learn ways to
empower our soul.
But children are vulnerable inmany ways, at a soul level, at a
physical level, it's just avery vulnerable time and we're
(21:39):
dependent as children.
We're dependent on ourcaregivers to survive.
We wouldn't survive withoutthem and that's why it's so
incredibly damaging when acaregiver is horrible, because
it's basically a possible for achild to reconcile that idea.
I need this person to stayalive and this person puts me at
(22:02):
such incredible risk and so wedevelop rejection and
abandonment and attachmentissues from that dichotomy.
That's just too much for achild to hold.
And so, looking at complextrauma from a shamanic
perspective, it's a deep andprofound level of soul loss.
(22:24):
And it's soul loss for when I'mworking with adults, because I
work with adults.
That happened many years agoand what happens then is we form
our identities.
Without those pieces of us.
We can heal the trauma, we cando the soul retrieval, we can do
the trauma psychotherapy.
(22:44):
But then, you're exactly right,we have this issue of okay, who
am I?
If.
I have these full parts returnedto me.
Who am I now?
Because I'm different and Ifeel different and I'm more
whole and I'm more in myself.
But it can feel veryuncomfortable and the same is
true with trauma.
If I suddenly have this beliefthat I'm worthy, what does that
(23:05):
mean if I've lived my whole lifelike I'm unworthy?
And so there's this whole pieceof identity work that has to be
done, I think shamanically aswell as therapeutically in terms
of what does this mean?
How does this allow me to walkthrough the world?
Now it's really learning towalk again.
It's almost like being atoddler, because you haven't
(23:27):
been in the world in this way,and it creates a whole different
way of acting and of being.
And when I see my clients whohave been so passive suddenly
start to advocate for themselves, it's lovely and it's why I do
this work to see people start todo that, start to act like they
(23:49):
deserve love and care.
But then what happens a lot ofthe time is people around them
are not expecting it and havethese reactions, and then my
folks don't know how to respondbecause they've never done it
before.
They've never stepped upthemselves before, it sounds to
me like sorry, I cut you offthere.
John Moir (24:06):
I'm gonna finish I was gonna say that when you
mentioned that they just don'tknow how to find their place in
the world or what they should do.
It sounds to me like that'sprime or they're prime for
initiation or rituals to helpthem make that leap from who
they were to not that they'vegrown, that they are different
(24:28):
and they're living a differentkind of life now, a life perhaps
that they were closer to thekind of life that they were
supposed to have.
Do you think ritual would be apositive addition to their
healing?
Alex Solomon (24:46):
Absolutely, absolutely, and I think a huge
piece of this is the waycommunity has shifted so
dramatically even in the last 50years.
Right, my background is inaddiction work and, in
particular, in mandatedaddiction work, people who are
involved in the legal system,and something I don't know who
(25:07):
initially said it, I don't evenknow if I could find it, but
something we say a lot is thatthe opposite of addiction is not
sobriety, the opposite ofaddiction is connection and the
idea of feeling connected andbeing in community and being in
circle, and it's such a hugepiece of what is missing for so
many people.
(25:28):
And so I think initiation is abig piece of it, and I think in
some ways, the healing can be aninitiation because you're
coming out the other side,somebody new, and healing is
uncomfortable a lot of the time,and so there's this trial and
tribulation and then this comingout the other side, but then
(25:48):
who receives you right andtraditionally, an initiation
would be into the community in adifferent way and you'd be
embraced.
And what I see a lot of thetime is there's not this
community to embrace, and Ithink that comes back to grief a
lot too.
There's so many people who areput in this position of having
(26:08):
to grieve alone, and so theyjust don't and the grief doesn't
happen, and so it stays stuck.
But there's not this communityto receive and to support.
John Moir (26:21):
Yes, and I would even think that for many people the
family's not necessarily thebest one to go back to, because
the family could have been a bigproblem for them to begin with.
Alex Solomon (26:32):
Exactly.
Most of my folks are coming tosee me because of trauma, at
least partially in theirfamilies of origin, if not
exclusively.
It's as we've retreated intothis idea of the nuclear family.
What do you do when yournuclear family is unhealthy?
Who performs your family?
And I think about when I'vebeen involved in queer and
(26:53):
transactimism for over 20 years,and so I think about chosen
family and how many people havegone to an event and felt like,
oh, this is family, this is whatit feels like, and the efforts
that are made to createcommunity when people have been
rejected from their families.
But I think in our greatersociety there's not an effort to
(27:13):
do that and, as a result,people are without community and
without that sense of family.
John Moir (27:19):
There's not an easy solution for that one building
community, because it takes manypeople.
Alex Solomon (27:25):
It takes many people and I think about how
online we are and I do onlinetrainings and I've done online
circles and I do online healingand online therapy and all of it
but it's I've heard someone sayat the beginning of the
pandemic when we're all doingthis online, it's the we're
(27:46):
reckoning with the presence ofthe person's absence.
You can see the person in frontof you, but they're not there.
And, as communities have goneonline, I think there are a lot
of ways.
That's positive, because if youand your little small tail
can't find somebody who reallygets you, you could probably
find someone on the internet whogets you.
And at the same time, what doesthat mean?
(28:09):
If you can't sit in a circleand I'm just metaphorical, using
sort of shamanic language hereif you can't be in circle with
people and have people in theroom, have people embrace you,
what does that do and how doesthat impact your sense of
belonging and being in community?
I agree with you there is notan easy fix and I don't even
(28:31):
know if we're headed in a fixingtype of direction with it.
John Moir (28:37):
I know that shamanic practice is.
When you think of First Nationspeople, they're deeply rooted
in specific cultural traditionsand we just don't see that to
have that in the greater urbancommunity.
Alex Solomon (28:50):
Yeah, and I think about my ancestors who came to
the United States about 100years ago and they all settled
in the same place because that'swhere the Eastern European
Jewish community was.
So that was community and theyall ended up right there in
Patterson, new Jersey, andpeople have spread out and
(29:11):
there's a lot more mobility andwe feel less tied to a place,
not just a people but, a placeand thinking shamanically about
community.
That doesn't just involve people, of course.
It involves the land and thespirits around us, and I think
there's so much that we'remissing in terms of what is it
(29:36):
to belong?
John Moir (29:37):
I agree, that I was going to follow up on that,
since the specific culturaltraditions are tied to a
community, and so when peopleask, wondering how do you ensure
cultural sensitivity andrespect in your own practice
with your clients, I know theanswer because I know you, but I
(29:58):
was wondering if you have athought for that.
Alex Solomon (30:01):
Yes, I have a thought for that, so I always
ask about that.
I always ask about culture andthat's my training, and as a
social worker, I have to getcultural competence continuing
education credits every year anddifferent states have different
requirements, but there's acertain number of my units that
have to be related to culturalcompetence.
But my training is to ask aboutthis.
(30:23):
I think a lot of people skip itbecause it makes them feel
uncomfortable, but I think it'simportant and I think about my
own traditions and what Greekrituals look like for us, and we
have specific Greek rituals andpeople continue those specific
Greek rituals in a way that alot of cultures don't, and I'm
really very thankful for theGreek rituals that I've been
(30:46):
involved in that way and that Iknow and have been taught to me.
Also, I think that there's arooting in ancestors and culture
and even if family of origin isunhealthy when I'm not someone
who says, oh, you should alwayskeep the door open to your
parents, no, sometimes youshouldn't, and I don't ever tell
(31:08):
anybody what to do, and I saythat.
I say I can't tell you whetherto keep talking to your father
or not.
That's he's not my father, he'snot my life.
That's your call.
We could talk about it, but I'mnot going to tell you what to
do.
But I think there can be arooting in ancestors and culture
, even if the immediate familyof origin is not healthy for you
(31:29):
.
So I've certainly failed thatmyself, as I've deepened my own
shamanic practice and myshamanic training is core
shamanism.
I've trained with traditionalshamans in a couple of different
traditions, but I would stillsay I'm a core practitioner
because that's really where I'mrooted.
But I've integrated a whole lotof traditions from my own
(31:54):
culture and my own ancestry andmy ancestors have taught me how
to do things in different ways,including things I haven't seen
documented anywhere necessarily,or they've taught me things and
then years later I hear aboutit or I read about it and I say,
oh, I do that.
So I think there's a rooting ina community with our unseen
(32:16):
family that can really be veryhealing.
So shamanically, it's somethingI talk about a lot because
ancestors are a big part of mypractice and a particular
interest of mine.
But I think there's somethingto be had there not just
shamanically in terms of rootingin culture and what helps you
(32:37):
feel rooted and what helps youfeel resourced.
John Moir (32:42):
Can you just explain the core shamanism for our
listeners?
Alex Solomon (32:47):
Sure, so core shamanism originated with
Michael Harner in, I'm going tosay, early 60s I can't remember
the exact date that thefoundation for shamanic studies
was formed at the time.
John Moir (33:01):
I think it was in the 70s, wasn't it?
Alex Solomon (33:04):
Yeah, it was the society for shamanic.
It was something else in thebeginning, founded in Norwalk,
connecticut Fun fact, not farfrom me and core shamanism is
the universal, near universaland common principles and
practices of shamanism worldwide, together with the shamanic
(33:24):
journey, which is a commonfeature.
And so what is?
It's not taking specificcultural practices from
different places and trying toknit them together, because that
would be, I would say,ineffective at best, and it is
looking at globally what istypical to shamanic practice and
shamanic culture and usingthose practices as a way to get
(33:50):
in touch with your own helpingspirits.
So it is a tradition, eventhough it's quite a young
tradition.
It has a lineage to it, eventhough it's a young lineage.
But what it is for is it givesaccess for people that don't
have a shamanic tradition thatthey're connected to in their
(34:13):
culture and their community,gives those folks a way to
access compassionate helpingspirits so that they can do the
work.
And I think it's such awonderful thing for us to have,
because I can't go be aMongolian shaman or a Peruvian
(34:35):
shaman, because I'm notMongolian and I'm not Peruvian
and I'm not immersed in thatculture and I could go live
there for 40 years, but I stillwould have at least pieces of
the worldview from theupbringing I received.
So we can't just become ofanother culture, and so what
core shamanism gives us is a wayto engage our own helping
(34:56):
spirits and our own culture inorder to be able to do this work
in a really deep and powerfulway.
John Moir (35:05):
That was well said, thank you.
Alex Solomon (35:08):
Can you tell?
I've said it before.
John Moir (35:10):
Maybe once or twice.
I just wanted two questionsthat I'd like to just focus on
next.
I was just wondering do youhave a case study that you could
present without anyidentification and then
following up on that?
I'll let you handle that onefirst.
Alex Solomon (35:30):
Are you looking for some positivity or do you
not care?
John Moir (35:33):
Just something that's real, that for listeners can
see an individual and what wasthe outcome?
That was good or whatever andhow you applied that.
I think so that if some peopleare a little bit cynical
listening to the show or to notquite getting it, that's an
example of what takes place.
Alex Solomon (35:56):
So I'll give you a therapy client.
This is a sad one,unfortunately, but she came in
to work on traumatic grief.
She had lost a child.
We were doing EMD-OMR and shewas feeling very stuck with it.
I became aware as we were doingit of the spirit of the child
(36:20):
in the room.
I'm not someone who normallysees, that's not how.
I usually perceive.
but I could see the outline ofthis spirit and started to
receive in a pretty auditory.
So I started to engage inconversation.
I could hear the child saythings and then she would say
(36:41):
I'm imagining him saying and itwas the same thing that he had
just said to me.
What was so sad is that shejust couldn't let him go and
they were tied together.
At the time I saw her, she justwasn't ready, she was still
(37:03):
holding him.
It was really sad because Ican't make her.
I can't make her, let him go,but it just it kept her in this
really very grief-stricken placeand in therapy and in shamanism
.
I don't force people to dothings.
That's not how I work.
(37:23):
I know it's not how you workbut I wasn't looking for this
spirit.
Just all of a sudden there hewas, and I hope that she can
find a way to relax the holdingenough for him to be able to go
where he needs to go.
But it was just very sad.
There was a lot of sadness forme because I felt like I had two
(37:49):
clients, because I had mytherapy client, but then I also
had this spirit in the room.
I know that's not a funuplifting one, but it was clear
as day.
It was clear as he was.
John Moir (38:00):
Well, that's, I would say it's common and
grief-tending, but it's one ofthe ones that people just can't
let go of their loved ones andthey really need to be let go.
It's the same thing, and someof those promises of I'll love
you forever and through positionwork, you have one that's.
(38:23):
This could be like from thepast, 100 years ago, sure, and
they made a promise and it'sshowing up today because this is
the first time that they hadgotten together.
Alex Solomon (38:36):
Yeah, and it was.
This was the living person thatwouldn't let go.
And yeah, it just speaks to howgrief, how profound grief, can
be such a stuck place.
John Moir (38:48):
Now, do you have something specifically a story
related to what they would callmore of a clear traumatic
experience and how you workedwith that client?
Alex Solomon (39:02):
Yeah, I actually I have a Psycho Pop story if you
want to hear it.
So I did a lot of addictionwork and I was working in an
intensive outpatient program forfolks who were early in their
recovery and as a result, we hada lot of people relapsing and
opioid addiction is the mostlethal mental health diagnosis.
(39:25):
And so I've I have lost peopleand it's really hard and I know
every loss feels different.
But I, in my intensiveoutpatient, the folks, I, my
colleagues and I lost someoneand it was a really hard one.
He was a younger guy, he was inhis twenties and he had
overdosed and we weren't sure ifit was intentional or not, but
(39:47):
it was just, it was really hard.
It was a really hard loss and soI felt sorry for myself for a
little while and then I said I'mgoing to go, I'm going to go
find him.
I was the self designatedagency psychopon at the time and
so I went to look for him andhe was very stuck.
(40:08):
But he was stuck because hedidn't think you'd go to heaven
and of course that's a result oftrauma, right, like I'm bad, so
I can't go anywhere, because Ihave to stay here right, because
helping deceased people isreally so much like therapy
because it's the conversationand it's figuring out what's the
(40:29):
way forward.
So I feel very much like atherapist when I'm doing that
kind of work and he was.
But what I had to explain tohim, which sort of I think
relates to the other story isthat you can't be there for your
family this way, you can't behelpful to them this way.
(40:50):
But if you're able to get whereyou need to go, then you can be
helpful to them and then youcan be an ancestor, then you can
be of assistance.
And so he was able to move onand I was doing psychopon, I
don't know, maybe three yearslater and I got to him and he
was.
He was oh good to see you.
It was really very sweet.
He was a sweet guy when he wasalive and I think it's so
(41:14):
important for us to realize howdying with unresolved trauma
it's not like the death justresolves it.
John Moir (41:24):
No.
Alex Solomon (41:25):
And the more trauma you have, the more soul
loss you have, the more likelyyou are not to have the power to
be able to really move on.
And so I think about what Iwould call an epidemic of soul
loss in our society.
John Moir (41:39):
and it creates all these other issues because we
have all these names for littlekinds of cultures, the hungry
ghosts or what have you, thatjust can't move on, can't get
where they need to go, just tobring it back to those who are
still walking on this earth Iwas just thinking so for example
(41:59):
, anybody who feels that they'vehad a traumatic experience been
threatened with a gun, whateverif it's first time, how would
you, what steps would yourecommend in the short term for
them to engage in to help toensure that they won't be a
(42:22):
victim of trauma?
Alex Solomon (42:25):
Yeah.
So that's a really goodquestion and there's some
interesting new research.
You're going to.
You're going to love thisplaying Tetris.
Well, true story, there's a newstudy out that playing Tetris
reduces the likelihood that anacute trauma is going to turn
into PTSD.
And from an EMDR perspective,it's that you're working your
(42:50):
brain while you're thinkingabout the trauma and so it gets
the memory to move through yourbrain through the process.
So all the EMDR therapists Iknow said, oh, of course that
works.
But that's the new research andthat's a pretty easy one to go
ahead and download Tetris onyour phone.
So I like that.
But I think where people getstuck is the trying not to think
(43:14):
about it, and sometimes it's sointense that you really can't
think about it and you need todistract yourself.
But in Francis Weller talksabout this in his book.
I'm sure you've talked about onthe show before, because you're
the one who recommended it tome the importance of actually
feeling our feelings.
And there's so many people whoare so deeply fearful of feeling
(43:34):
feelings that you know andwe're pretty good, our brains
are pretty clever.
We can box things away, butthey don't ever really stay
boxed.
They're still there and that'swhen sometimes the box gets
bumped and open and we get thatflooding, being able to feel
feelings and work through it,and I really encourage people
(43:56):
not to try and reinvent thewheel.
Many people have ways that workfor them of feeling feelings,
whether that's journaling,whether that's talking to
somebody, whether that's drawingit or whatever it is.
Our brains want to processthings right.
We dream about them, we getstuck in them, our brains are
(44:16):
trying to process.
So if you can allow yourself toactually experience the emotion
, sometimes that's what's needed.
But also, I encourage peoplenot to wait until 20 years later
, when they've been suffering,to get some help with it.
Whether it's therapy orshamanism or sacro or
(44:37):
acupuncture or tai chi, whateverkind of modality was good to
you, it's not too early to talkabout it.
You, when you first experiencetrauma, we expect you to feel
all those symptoms of what wewould call acute stress disorder
.
We don't diagnose PTSD untilsix months after the trauma
because those symptoms in thebeginning are appropriate.
(45:00):
That's our brain and our bodyreleasing the experience.
But if it feels debilitating,if you feel like you can't leave
the house, you can't go to work, you're constantly overwhelmed,
it's not ever too early to getsome help with it.
And as a therapist and as ashamanic practitioner, I'm very
relational.
I work in a relational way anda lot of the time just having
(45:22):
somebody else to witness yourexperience can be so deeply
healing.
It brings me back to communityand the idea that we're in this
place, in our society, wherewe're just expected to go
through these things alone, andI think finding a way not to be
alone, finding a way to bewitness often is really the best
thing.
John Moir (45:41):
That's an important pillar for attending a grief
circle.
It's not from you, don't haveto think of it as that.
I lost my wife or my child orwhatever might be big for you.
And but to come in and talkabout your call at work or to
talk about a threatening eventthat took place on the street
(46:04):
with you or a car accident thatyou're in, these are just as big
as personal grief.
And the grief circles don't.
Many are free, others charge asmall amount just to help cover
costs.
But yeah, and it's thatwitnessing, as you say, that is
so important is the sharing ofwhatever your grief story is,
(46:27):
and I might have mentioned it onanother show that people that
come to a grief circle to talkabout just even the loss of a
species or a loss of a beautifulgrove of trees that was taken
down to be replaced by homes.
A lot of people care verydeeply for these things and they
(46:48):
grieve deeply.
Sharing and having your painwitnessed and your story heard
in a safe, non-threateningenvironment is big.
Just to plug our own littlething on the soulful sorrows, we
have monthly grief circles andwe invite anybody and everybody
(47:09):
who feels that they wouldbenefit by being witnessed to
come.
It's the third Tuesday of eachmonth.
Anyways, alex, I think weshould leave it there, and, like
always, I get such joy speakingwith you and certainly
appreciate deeply your thoughtstoday.
(47:32):
And just so for the show notes,we will definitely be following
up on Tetris and some otherresources.
I found that Paul Levine's bookAwaking the Tiger was a good
place to start with, and what Igot out of that was that our
bodies just want to heal.
They know how to heal if we getout of their way and just let
(47:57):
our bodies not do what they knowbest.
Alex Solomon (48:00):
Anyways, I totally agree.
John Moir (48:01):
Okay, Anyways, thank you Alex, and that will speak
again.
Alex Solomon (48:05):
Thanks so much, John.
John Moir (48:06):
It's been wonderful to chat with you as we wrap up
today's episode.
We've explored approaches toblood and shamanic traditions on
clinical therapy for holistichealing approach to trauma and
grief.
Thank you to our guests, alexSalamance for sharing their
insights on emergency men andeasement to psychotherapy's
structure of highlighting thesense of combining spiritual and
(48:29):
psychological healing.
Please continue thisconversation by leaving your
thoughts on this episode in thecomments section below or email
me at john aturbangriefshamascom.
So we meet again.
Grief rebels as it stirs deepwithin us, sparking a profound
resistance to a life devoid ofemotion.
It emboldens wildness andflashes with the power of
thunder, while remaining untamedand free.
As we learn, grief becomes theprimary emotion for the soul's
(00:30):
vitality.
Grief, like love, embodies lifeitself.
It resists, being gentle, andyet moves of so passionately,
leaving no doubt.
This emotion erupts from thewells of our soul.
In our podcast, we explore thisdefiance, embrace its wildness
(00:53):
and find peace within itsuntamed vitality as we live in
the hustle of everyday life.
Welcome to the Urban GriefShamans.
Join Patricia Jones, apsychotherapist, and John Moyer,
a retired paramedic, as weexplore the spiritual side of
grief.
In our episode today, you'lldiscover the powerful fusion of
(01:20):
shamanic practice and clinicaltherapy in treating non-physical
trauma, also known as PTSD.
We will also explore how thesedistinct fields intersect and
enhance each other.
My guest, alex Solomon, sharesfirst-hand experience and
together we explore thepractical challenges and
rewarding outcomes of mergingspiritual practices with
(01:41):
clinical approaches to trauma.
Let's join in on myconversation with Alex.
Alex Solomon (01:48):
My master's, I have a concentration in group
work, which I did.
I was told that the groupworkers were the fun ones in
this program which.
I think was the case.
We had some fun.
But thinking again aboutshamanism, right, it's not
something that's done in asolitary sense, it's something
that's done in communities.
(02:08):
A lot of my professionaltraining is really in the idea
of the circle right.
A therapy group is a circle andwe're sitting there and we're
joined together.
That hadn't really occurred tome until now, but there's a
similarity there, I think.
John Moir (02:26):
So when was that point that you thought that you
would just mix or bring yourshamanic practice and your
clinical practice together?
Alex Solomon (02:36):
That was a challenge for me because and you
and I have talked about thechaos of insurance in the United
States it's quite differentfrom your experience in Canada,
I think.
But insurance companies want topay for what they deem to be
evidence-based allopathicmedicine, which some of it is
(02:57):
based on research and some of itis somewhat arbitrary.
But, working in agencies andworking in non-profits that are
contracted with the state toprovide these services, I found
that there was a variety ofopenness to the administrations
that I worked for in terms ofbringing in these more shamanic
(03:19):
practices, these more spiritualpractices.
I never experienced clients notbeing open to it, but I had to
sneak things in a little bit.
So I never really was able todo a healing session or anything
like that in a treatmentsetting, which I would have
loved to do.
I think it would have beenlovely.
I think it would have beenlovely to do things like
(03:41):
drumming circles, to do singingand dancing, but it wasn't ever
something I was able to dobecause I think it's not
accepted.
John Moir (03:50):
There's some skepticism there.
Is it more?
Or is it just?
You just didn't fit the mold?
Alex Solomon (03:57):
I think it doesn't fit the mold.
I think psychology started verymuch as art and then it swung
into the direction of becomingscience, because there was such
a push to get us to recognize asmental health professionals and
say, no, we're just as good asyou doctors that treat
(04:17):
infections and do surgeries andset bones, we do something.
That's just as important andthat's true.
But where we've swung to is noweverything has to fit this very
specific mold of what it'ssupposed to look like and I
think we've lost the art of it.
(04:40):
And when I say the art of it itreally means a feeling aspect,
the somatic aspect of being ableto go where we feel guided with
a particular person.
And I think most therapists Iknow would say that, whether
they think of it in a spiritualcontext or not, that sometimes
we just have a feeling and weget pulled in a direction ends
(05:01):
up really opening up a newavenue.
John Moir (05:04):
From a healing philosophy standpoint, how does
your understanding of traumadiffer when viewed through a
somatic lens compared to apsychotherapeutic one?
Alex Solomon (05:13):
I certainly have a merged view at this point.
It's almost like I have twotrains of thought going at the
same time.
And I really do try and honor.
If someone's coming to me forpsychotherapy, I'm not going to
inject shamanism when it's notasked for.
I think that's rude.
I'd advise first that.
(05:34):
But when someone's coming to mewith trauma and complex traumas
is repetitive early trauma isreally the focus of my practice.
I do find myself thinking of itin terms of soul.
When I look at my trainingaround trauma, most of which has
(05:57):
been after my masters in allthe hundreds of hours of
training I've done around it,while they don't use the word
soul, I think there really isnot that much of a difference in
terms of thinking about it.
We talk about the self and theself concept, and how does early
trauma cause someone not to beable to have a cohesive sense of
(06:24):
themself?
And so, from a shamanic view,if we say this is soul loss, I
think it really fits togetherquite nicely.
And people will come in and sayI feel like I'm not whole, I
feel like a piece of me ismissing, and I don't think
there's conflict in terms ofthinking from a shamanic
perspective.
This is soul loss and from apsychotherapeutic perspective,
(06:47):
this is whatever we would callit.
This is fragmentation.
John Moir (06:51):
Whereas in a shamanic treatment would be a soul
retrieval, I guess in thetraditional clinical side of
things it would be the.
Is it EMDR?
Alex Solomon (07:03):
Yeah, so I've-.
John Moir (07:05):
Maybe explain that for our listeners that EMDR is-.
Alex Solomon (07:09):
Yeah, so I'll explain it as best I can Explain
it all the time.
So EMDR stands for Eye Movement, desensitization and
Reprocessing, and it's differentthan talk therapy in that it's
getting your brain to correctlyprocess a memory that has not
been correctly processed.
(07:29):
So we think of the memory asbeing unprocessed, in the sense
that past trauma feels like it'sstill happening in the present.
The memory is stuck and it'snot processed or stored
correctly.
So with EMDR what we're doingis using what we call bilateral
stimulation, which can be eyemovements from side to side, it
(07:51):
can be tapping, it can beauditory.
We're using that process to getthe brain to process the memory
correctly.
So it gets stored as long-termmemory and what it does is it
pulls out the negative emotionand the somatization that's
(08:12):
attached to it.
That's so distressing, and italso, through the way that we do
it and set it up, it can shiftthe belief that's attached to
the memory.
So people tend to have corenegative beliefs like it's my
fault, or I'm bad, or I'm notsafe, or I'm lovable, these deep
(08:34):
beliefs that are hooked intoall these different memories,
and so a big piece of what we'redoing is causing that to shift.
I'm lovable, I'm okay, the wayI am, I can keep myself safe.
And with EMDR it's really not atalk therapy.
There doesn't have to be anytalking at all.
(08:55):
It's a way to get the brain andthe body, because it can really
be quite somatic for people.
It's getting, it's looking fora state shift, and so when I
think of soul retrieval, peopletend to experience something
very similar, that they reallyfeel that something is different
(09:18):
.
And I think a lot of peoplethink that the best they can do
with trauma in any way, sotherapeutically or otherwise, is
learning to cope with it, andshamanism certainly teaches us
that we can do better than that.
And.
I think a lot of the newertrauma therapies not just EMDR,
but things like sensory motorpsychotherapy and in ego state
(09:41):
therapy, which I have a lot oftraining in as well show us
that's not the case.
We can do better than just copewith it when I feel triggered.
John Moir (09:50):
Now the EMDR.
Is it the sense that the traumais stored in a particular part
of the body or in the brain?
Alex Solomon (09:58):
Yeah, so one of the things we look at in EMDR is
where do you feel this in thebody?
And some people tend to holddifferent things in different
places and some people have justa part of their body where they
always feel that trauma.
It's often in the core,somewhere in the heart or in the
stomach.
But people hold things in theirarms, people will feel it move
(10:21):
around the body, right, and whenyou think about shamanic
training, you would call thatsomething else.
Right, feeling something movearound the body.
You would call that anintrusion and you would remove
it Again.
You see these parallels here.
(10:43):
But what happens during EMDR isthat there's an allowing and
allowing your body to releasethose things and allowing things
to shift within you.
So when I think about it from ashamanic perspective, I don't
know why I would call it aspontaneous soul retrieval,
because it's not spontaneous.
We are trying to do something,but the way I think of it is
(11:06):
opening an invitation, fightingthat part to come back and
creating an opening for that tohappen.
And often there's creating anopening for releasing and I use
a lot of metaphors with this andcan go after it more directly
sometimes but can you feel thatflowing out of your body?
Can you feel a releasing inthat part of your body?
(11:29):
So I really do think somethingsimilar is happening and I see
people experiencing things notjust at a mental level, but at a
soul level, even though we'renot talking about the soul.
John Moir (11:44):
I understand People have repetitive traumatic
experiences.
I'm thinking of my brothers andsisters in emergency medical
services, policing and fireservices, who have been carrying
many different types of callsthat they've experienced over
perhaps their working career,and there's a number of
(12:05):
different new traumaticexperiences that are piling on.
Would that be the right way toexplain it, or to suggest that?
How does one keep wrappingtheir bodies around this
traumatic energy and not lettingit go?
Alex Solomon (12:22):
And that's the thing with repetitive trauma
that there is a difference inexperience between what we would
call a single incident traumaI've had a really good life,
then I have this horrible caraccident and now I'm
experiencing PTSD from this oneincident and there's a
(12:44):
difference between that and arepetitive trauma, something
that's happening over and over.
It creates a differentexperience and that's what we
would call complex trauma andfolks that are experiencing
complex PTSD, which is not anofficial diagnosis.
(13:04):
There's a lot of debate aroundthat and has been for years.
But for complex PTSD, a lot ofthe time it's repetitive
childhood trauma because and wetalk about this shamanically too
how children have both put inboth world, so psychologically,
(13:25):
children's sense of self isinformed.
We don't come out as infantswith a full sense of self.
So having those repetitiveexperiences as a young child can
really distort your ability tolook at the world as a safe
(13:47):
place and look at yourself as aperson who is able to be in the
world.
And then, thinking about firstresponders, there's this similar
thing of repeated trauma andthis idea that it's inescapable.
It keeps happening over andover.
(14:07):
There's something to thatinability to escape over and
over.
That really compounds it, and Italk a lot about how trauma is
cumulative.
It's not these single separateincidents that our brains are
really good at finding patternsand they link these things
together and it can createreally severe belief systems
(14:34):
that make it very hard to be inthe world in a healthy way.
John Moir (14:38):
And other situations would certainly be like domestic
abuse or physical abuse,anything that's repetitive.
Even for the nursing staff, er,military people who have
multiple griefs.
Is that similar?
Because sometimes I wonder thatwhen we talk about trauma
(15:00):
non-physical trauma, I see,because that's where patrician
I've specialized is lookingmerging grief, awareness and
shamanism, and I find that to meit seems like it's one in the
same, that people who've had alot of trauma not trauma but a
(15:20):
lot of grief seem to have a lotof the symptoms that I hear when
I hear some of my colleaguesexpressing their trauma stories.
Any thoughts?
Alex Solomon (15:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
We talk about the differencebetween grief and traumatic
grief, and there's this ideathat there's and I don't love
the word appropriate here, butit's the word we tend to use
there's an appropriate griefprocess or a typical grief
process, and I don't knowanybody who really knows what
(15:54):
they're talking about, who wouldtry and medicate away grief or
therapize away grief.
Right, it's supposed to feel it, but having multiple losses and
even again coming back to firstresponders witnessing a lot of
death and this applies to combattrauma as well it creates this
(16:16):
really profound.
I just tend to describe traumasthat are linked together and
this is just my metaphor as astring of Christmas lights.
They're all linked together andyou can't just light up one
bulb, right, when you plug in,all the bulbs light up.
And so when something remindsyou of a trauma, it's not just
that one trauma that getstriggered, it's the whole string
(16:36):
of Christmas lights gets lit up, and so you get flooded with
all of this emotion and all ofthis somatic sensation and you
might not get a whole series ofmemories, but what it is, all of
those memories are lighting up.
And so that's very true ofgrief, that these griefs can
compound each other if youhaven't gone through the process
(17:00):
and if you haven't found Iwould say, found your peace with
loss.
I think that's something that wedon't talk about a lot in our
culture because we're so removedfrom death, we distance
ourselves from it.
It's not the way our ancestorswould have had caretaking elders
and then dying in the home andhaving grief rituals, and so
(17:24):
much of that is gone, and so youcan end up with this
interrupted process, and that'swhat trauma is right.
It's an interrupted process ofallowing your brain to complete
the processing of a memory, andthat happens with grief.
We have these interruptedexperiences that we don't get to
(17:45):
grieve, or we're discouragedfrom grieving, or we don't have
time to grieve.
Maybe you don't have time.
My last employer would give you, I think, five days off of work
for a parent in one day off fora non-parent right.
How could you possibly grievein that time?
John Moir (18:03):
And it's just like even in the first response
communities it's not masculineenough to grieve in public or to
.
If you have a good partner, itgets you through so much and if
you don't have somebody that youtrust or you feel safe with,
then you're certainly not gonnatalk about your deeper feelings.
And as the same, throughchildhood shame or being in a
(18:25):
grief of being rebuffed in aromantic situation, and these
are all called perhaps the smallgriefs that we just suppress
and we just keep building it upin ourselves.
And one of the things I reallyloved about Weller's teachings
was that unattended grief justbecomes such like lead and it
makes us numb and so that wejust don't do anything about it.
(18:49):
But we don't live a full life,we don't live a big life.
And then you have that biggrief that comes along like a
death of somebody really closeto you or and it just takes you
down.
But what it does, the big onealso opens up all the smaller
ones, and then you're being hitall at once with all these past
memories and it's veryoverwhelming.
Alex Solomon (19:11):
Right, and yeah, psychologically, we call that
flooding, which I think such alovely word for it, in a way,
because it's think about gettingknocked over by a wave.
That's what it is.
Yeah, you're making me think ofso much of working with my
folks who experienced childabuse is dealing with things
like abandonment and rejection.
(19:34):
And those are severe.
So we don't think of it as agrief because you're not
experiencing a death.
And I think we've limited theword grief to a very specific
thing, not allowed it toencompass things like losing a
job, losing housing, which I'vehad so many clients all of a
(19:54):
sudden homeless, all of a suddenunemployed.
What do we do with that?
And you go into problem solvingmode, and I'm certainly guilty
of that because I want to fix it.
I'm a problem solver, so howcan I house this person?
How can I help them income, howcan I help them find food?
But we have to remember it,that we have to deal with a
grief of it.
It's still a loss.
John Moir (20:16):
Exactly, and it's not just loss of a particular place
, it's also loss of the.
I don't know, if you mentionedidentity, who you are within
that community, and all of asudden you're thrust out of that
.
And now if you're trying toreestablish yourself in another
place, you start from scratch.
Sometimes, a lot of times,right, nobody knows who you are
(20:40):
or what value you have or don'thave, and that's a big grief for
a lot of people.
Alex Solomon (20:46):
Absolutely.
John Moir (20:48):
So, coming back to trauma and the you call it
complex trauma, how would youtake a shamanic approach to
complex trauma?
Alex Solomon (20:57):
So complex trauma is extreme soul loss from a
shamanic perspective, andespecially because it often
starts when someone is so young.
We're so vulnerable at that agefrom a soul perspective and we
talk about that sense ofidentity.
(21:18):
Psychologically we develop asense of identity over time and
shamanically we're talking aboutthe soul.
Our soul drinks ends as we getolder and as we learn ways to
empower our soul.
But children are vulnerable inmany ways, at a soul level, at a
physical level, it's just avery vulnerable time and we're
(21:39):
dependent as children.
We're dependent on ourcaregivers to survive.
We wouldn't survive withoutthem and that's why it's so
incredibly damaging when acaregiver is horrible, because
it's basically a possible for achild to reconcile that idea.
I need this person to stayalive and this person puts me at
(22:02):
such incredible risk and so wedevelop rejection and
abandonment and attachmentissues from that dichotomy.
That's just too much for achild to hold.
And so, looking at complextrauma from a shamanic
perspective, it's a deep andprofound level of soul loss.
(22:24):
And it's soul loss for when I'mworking with adults, because I
work with adults.
That happened many years agoand what happens then is we form
our identities.
Without those pieces of us.
We can heal the trauma, we cando the soul retrieval, we can do
the trauma psychotherapy.
(22:44):
But then, you're exactly right,we have this issue of okay, who
am I?
If.
I have these full parts returnedto me.
Who am I now?
Because I'm different and Ifeel different and I'm more
whole and I'm more in myself.
But it can feel veryuncomfortable and the same is
true with trauma.
If I suddenly have this beliefthat I'm worthy, what does that
(23:05):
mean if I've lived my whole lifelike I'm unworthy?
And so there's this whole pieceof identity work that has to be
done, I think shamanically aswell as therapeutically in terms
of what does this mean?
How does this allow me to walkthrough the world?
Now it's really learning towalk again.
It's almost like being atoddler, because you haven't
(23:27):
been in the world in this way,and it creates a whole different
way of acting and of being.
And when I see my clients whohave been so passive suddenly
start to advocate for themselves, it's lovely and it's why I do
this work to see people start todo that, start to act like they
(23:49):
deserve love and care.
But then what happens a lot ofthe time is people around them
are not expecting it and havethese reactions, and then my
folks don't know how to respondbecause they've never done it
before.
They've never stepped upthemselves before, it sounds to
me like sorry, I cut you offthere.
John Moir (24:06):
I'm gonna finish I was gonna say that when you
mentioned that they just don'tknow how to find their place in
the world or what they should do.
It sounds to me like that'sprime or they're prime for
initiation or rituals to helpthem make that leap from who
they were to not that they'vegrown, that they are different
(24:28):
and they're living a differentkind of life now, a life perhaps
that they were closer to thekind of life that they were
supposed to have.
Do you think ritual would be apositive addition to their
healing?
Alex Solomon (24:46):
Absolutely, absolutely, and I think a huge
piece of this is the waycommunity has shifted so
dramatically even in the last 50years.
Right, my background is inaddiction work and, in
particular, in mandatedaddiction work, people who are
involved in the legal system,and something I don't know who
(25:07):
initially said it, I don't evenknow if I could find it, but
something we say a lot is thatthe opposite of addiction is not
sobriety, the opposite ofaddiction is connection and the
idea of feeling connected andbeing in community and being in
circle, and it's such a hugepiece of what is missing for so
many people.
(25:28):
And so I think initiation is abig piece of it, and I think in
some ways, the healing can be aninitiation because you're
coming out the other side,somebody new, and healing is
uncomfortable a lot of the time,and so there's this trial and
tribulation and then this comingout the other side, but then
(25:48):
who receives you right andtraditionally, an initiation
would be into the community in adifferent way and you'd be
embraced.
And what I see a lot of thetime is there's not this
community to embrace, and Ithink that comes back to grief a
lot too.
There's so many people who areput in this position of having
(26:08):
to grieve alone, and so theyjust don't and the grief doesn't
happen, and so it stays stuck.
But there's not this communityto receive and to support.
John Moir (26:21):
Yes, and I would even think that for many people the
family's not necessarily thebest one to go back to, because
the family could have been a bigproblem for them to begin with.
Alex Solomon (26:32):
Exactly.
Most of my folks are coming tosee me because of trauma, at
least partially in theirfamilies of origin, if not
exclusively.
It's as we've retreated intothis idea of the nuclear family.
What do you do when yournuclear family is unhealthy?
Who performs your family?
And I think about when I'vebeen involved in queer and
(26:53):
transactimism for over 20 years,and so I think about chosen
family and how many people havegone to an event and felt like,
oh, this is family, this is whatit feels like, and the efforts
that are made to createcommunity when people have been
rejected from their families.
But I think in our greatersociety there's not an effort to
(27:13):
do that and, as a result,people are without community and
without that sense of family.
John Moir (27:19):
There's not an easy solution for that one building
community, because it takes manypeople.
Alex Solomon (27:25):
It takes many people and I think about how
online we are and I do onlinetrainings and I've done online
circles and I do online healingand online therapy and all of it
but it's I've heard someone sayat the beginning of the
pandemic when we're all doingthis online, it's the we're
(27:46):
reckoning with the presence ofthe person's absence.
You can see the person in frontof you, but they're not there.
And, as communities have goneonline, I think there are a lot
of ways.
That's positive, because if youand your little small tail
can't find somebody who reallygets you, you could probably
find someone on the internet whogets you.
And at the same time, what doesthat mean?
(28:09):
If you can't sit in a circleand I'm just metaphorical, using
sort of shamanic language hereif you can't be in circle with
people and have people in theroom, have people embrace you,
what does that do and how doesthat impact your sense of
belonging and being in community?
I agree with you there is notan easy fix and I don't even
(28:31):
know if we're headed in a fixingtype of direction with it.
John Moir (28:37):
I know that shamanic practice is.
When you think of First Nationspeople, they're deeply rooted
in specific cultural traditionsand we just don't see that to
have that in the greater urbancommunity.
Alex Solomon (28:50):
Yeah, and I think about my ancestors who came to
the United States about 100years ago and they all settled
in the same place because that'swhere the Eastern European
Jewish community was.
So that was community and theyall ended up right there in
Patterson, new Jersey, andpeople have spread out and
(29:11):
there's a lot more mobility andwe feel less tied to a place,
not just a people but, a placeand thinking shamanically about
community.
That doesn't just involve people, of course.
It involves the land and thespirits around us, and I think
there's so much that we'remissing in terms of what is it
(29:36):
to belong?
John Moir (29:37):
I agree, that I was going to follow up on that,
since the specific culturaltraditions are tied to a
community, and so when peopleask, wondering how do you ensure
cultural sensitivity andrespect in your own practice
with your clients, I know theanswer because I know you, but I
(29:58):
was wondering if you have athought for that.
Alex Solomon (30:01):
Yes, I have a thought for that, so I always
ask about that.
I always ask about culture andthat's my training, and as a
social worker, I have to getcultural competence continuing
education credits every year anddifferent states have different
requirements, but there's acertain number of my units that
have to be related to culturalcompetence.
But my training is to ask aboutthis.
(30:23):
I think a lot of people skip itbecause it makes them feel
uncomfortable, but I think it'simportant and I think about my
own traditions and what Greekrituals look like for us, and we
have specific Greek rituals andpeople continue those specific
Greek rituals in a way that alot of cultures don't, and I'm
really very thankful for theGreek rituals that I've been
(30:46):
involved in that way and that Iknow and have been taught to me.
Also, I think that there's arooting in ancestors and culture
and even if family of origin isunhealthy when I'm not someone
who says, oh, you should alwayskeep the door open to your
parents, no, sometimes youshouldn't, and I don't ever tell
(31:08):
anybody what to do, and I saythat.
I say I can't tell you whetherto keep talking to your father
or not.
That's he's not my father, he'snot my life.
That's your call.
We could talk about it, but I'mnot going to tell you what to
do.
But I think there can be arooting in ancestors and culture
, even if the immediate familyof origin is not healthy for you
(31:29):
.
So I've certainly failed thatmyself, as I've deepened my own
shamanic practice and myshamanic training is core
shamanism.
I've trained with traditionalshamans in a couple of different
traditions, but I would stillsay I'm a core practitioner
because that's really where I'mrooted.
But I've integrated a whole lotof traditions from my own
(31:54):
culture and my own ancestry andmy ancestors have taught me how
to do things in different ways,including things I haven't seen
documented anywhere necessarily,or they've taught me things and
then years later I hear aboutit or I read about it and I say,
oh, I do that.
So I think there's a rooting ina community with our unseen
(32:16):
family that can really be veryhealing.
So shamanically, it's somethingI talk about a lot because
ancestors are a big part of mypractice and a particular
interest of mine.
But I think there's somethingto be had there not just
shamanically in terms of rootingin culture and what helps you
(32:37):
feel rooted and what helps youfeel resourced.
John Moir (32:42):
Can you just explain the core shamanism for our
listeners?
Alex Solomon (32:47):
Sure, so core shamanism originated with
Michael Harner in, I'm going tosay, early 60s I can't remember
the exact date that thefoundation for shamanic studies
was formed at the time.
John Moir (33:01):
I think it was in the 70s, wasn't it?
Alex Solomon (33:04):
Yeah, it was the society for shamanic.
It was something else in thebeginning, founded in Norwalk,
connecticut Fun fact, not farfrom me and core shamanism is
the universal, near universaland common principles and
practices of shamanism worldwide, together with the shamanic
(33:24):
journey, which is a commonfeature.
And so what is?
It's not taking specificcultural practices from
different places and trying toknit them together, because that
would be, I would say,ineffective at best, and it is
looking at globally what istypical to shamanic practice and
shamanic culture and usingthose practices as a way to get
(33:50):
in touch with your own helpingspirits.
So it is a tradition, eventhough it's quite a young
tradition.
It has a lineage to it, eventhough it's a young lineage.
But what it is for is it givesaccess for people that don't
have a shamanic tradition thatthey're connected to in their
(34:13):
culture and their community,gives those folks a way to
access compassionate helpingspirits so that they can do the
work.
And I think it's such awonderful thing for us to have,
because I can't go be aMongolian shaman or a Peruvian
(34:35):
shaman, because I'm notMongolian and I'm not Peruvian
and I'm not immersed in thatculture and I could go live
there for 40 years, but I stillwould have at least pieces of
the worldview from theupbringing I received.
So we can't just become ofanother culture, and so what
core shamanism gives us is a wayto engage our own helping
(34:56):
spirits and our own culture inorder to be able to do this work
in a really deep and powerfulway.
John Moir (35:05):
That was well said, thank you.
Alex Solomon (35:08):
Can you tell?
I've said it before.
John Moir (35:10):
Maybe once or twice.
I just wanted two questionsthat I'd like to just focus on
next.
I was just wondering do youhave a case study that you could
present without anyidentification and then
following up on that?
I'll let you handle that onefirst.
Alex Solomon (35:30):
Are you looking for some positivity or do you
not care?
John Moir (35:33):
Just something that's real, that for listeners can
see an individual and what wasthe outcome?
That was good or whatever andhow you applied that.
I think so that if some peopleare a little bit cynical
listening to the show or to notquite getting it, that's an
example of what takes place.
Alex Solomon (35:56):
So I'll give you a therapy client.
This is a sad one,unfortunately, but she came in
to work on traumatic grief.
She had lost a child.
We were doing EMD-OMR and shewas feeling very stuck with it.
I became aware as we were doingit of the spirit of the child
(36:20):
in the room.
I'm not someone who normallysees, that's not how.
I usually perceive.
but I could see the outline ofthis spirit and started to
receive in a pretty auditory.
So I started to engage inconversation.
I could hear the child saythings and then she would say
(36:41):
I'm imagining him saying and itwas the same thing that he had
just said to me.
What was so sad is that shejust couldn't let him go and
they were tied together.
At the time I saw her, she justwasn't ready, she was still
(37:03):
holding him.
It was really sad because Ican't make her.
I can't make her, let him go,but it just it kept her in this
really very grief-stricken placeand in therapy and in shamanism
.
I don't force people to dothings.
That's not how I work.
(37:23):
I know it's not how you workbut I wasn't looking for this
spirit.
Just all of a sudden there hewas, and I hope that she can
find a way to relax the holdingenough for him to be able to go
where he needs to go.
But it was just very sad.
There was a lot of sadness forme because I felt like I had two
(37:49):
clients, because I had mytherapy client, but then I also
had this spirit in the room.
I know that's not a funuplifting one, but it was clear
as day.
It was clear as he was.
John Moir (38:00):
Well, that's, I would say it's common and
grief-tending, but it's one ofthe ones that people just can't
let go of their loved ones andthey really need to be let go.
It's the same thing, and someof those promises of I'll love
you forever and through positionwork, you have one that's.
(38:23):
This could be like from thepast, 100 years ago, sure, and
they made a promise and it'sshowing up today because this is
the first time that they hadgotten together.
Alex Solomon (38:36):
Yeah, and it was.
This was the living person thatwouldn't let go.
And yeah, it just speaks to howgrief, how profound grief, can
be such a stuck place.
John Moir (38:48):
Now, do you have something specifically a story
related to what they would callmore of a clear traumatic
experience and how you workedwith that client?
Alex Solomon (39:02):
Yeah, I actually I have a Psycho Pop story if you
want to hear it.
So I did a lot of addictionwork and I was working in an
intensive outpatient program forfolks who were early in their
recovery and as a result, we hada lot of people relapsing and
opioid addiction is the mostlethal mental health diagnosis.
(39:25):
And so I've I have lost peopleand it's really hard and I know
every loss feels different.
But I, in my intensiveoutpatient, the folks, I, my
colleagues and I lost someoneand it was a really hard one.
He was a younger guy, he was inhis twenties and he had
overdosed and we weren't sure ifit was intentional or not, but
(39:47):
it was just, it was really hard.
It was a really hard loss and soI felt sorry for myself for a
little while and then I said I'mgoing to go, I'm going to go
find him.
I was the self designatedagency psychopon at the time and
so I went to look for him andhe was very stuck.
(40:08):
But he was stuck because hedidn't think you'd go to heaven
and of course that's a result oftrauma, right, like I'm bad, so
I can't go anywhere, because Ihave to stay here right, because
helping deceased people isreally so much like therapy
because it's the conversationand it's figuring out what's the
(40:29):
way forward.
So I feel very much like atherapist when I'm doing that
kind of work and he was.
But what I had to explain tohim, which sort of I think
relates to the other story isthat you can't be there for your
family this way, you can't behelpful to them this way.
(40:50):
But if you're able to get whereyou need to go, then you can be
helpful to them and then youcan be an ancestor, then you can
be of assistance.
And so he was able to move onand I was doing psychopon, I
don't know, maybe three yearslater and I got to him and he
was.
He was oh good to see you.
It was really very sweet.
He was a sweet guy when he wasalive and I think it's so
(41:14):
important for us to realize howdying with unresolved trauma
it's not like the death justresolves it.
John Moir (41:24):
No.
Alex Solomon (41:25):
And the more trauma you have, the more soul
loss you have, the more likelyyou are not to have the power to
be able to really move on.
And so I think about what Iwould call an epidemic of soul
loss in our society.
John Moir (41:39):
and it creates all these other issues because we
have all these names for littlekinds of cultures, the hungry
ghosts or what have you, thatjust can't move on, can't get
where they need to go, just tobring it back to those who are
still walking on this earth Iwas just thinking so for example
(41:59):
, anybody who feels that they'vehad a traumatic experience been
threatened with a gun, whateverif it's first time, how would
you, what steps would yourecommend in the short term for
them to engage in to help toensure that they won't be a
(42:22):
victim of trauma?
Alex Solomon (42:25):
Yeah.
So that's a really goodquestion and there's some
interesting new research.
You're going to.
You're going to love thisplaying Tetris.
Well, true story, there's a newstudy out that playing Tetris
reduces the likelihood that anacute trauma is going to turn
into PTSD.
And from an EMDR perspective,it's that you're working your
(42:50):
brain while you're thinkingabout the trauma and so it gets
the memory to move through yourbrain through the process.
So all the EMDR therapists Iknow said, oh, of course that
works.
But that's the new research andthat's a pretty easy one to go
ahead and download Tetris onyour phone.
So I like that.
But I think where people getstuck is the trying not to think
(43:14):
about it, and sometimes it's sointense that you really can't
think about it and you need todistract yourself.
But in Francis Weller talksabout this in his book.
I'm sure you've talked about onthe show before, because you're
the one who recommended it tome the importance of actually
feeling our feelings.
And there's so many people whoare so deeply fearful of feeling
(43:34):
feelings that you know andwe're pretty good, our brains
are pretty clever.
We can box things away, butthey don't ever really stay
boxed.
They're still there and that'swhen sometimes the box gets
bumped and open and we get thatflooding, being able to feel
feelings and work through it,and I really encourage people
(43:56):
not to try and reinvent thewheel.
Many people have ways that workfor them of feeling feelings,
whether that's journaling,whether that's talking to
somebody, whether that's drawingit or whatever it is.
Our brains want to processthings right.
We dream about them, we getstuck in them, our brains are
(44:16):
trying to process.
So if you can allow yourself toactually experience the emotion
, sometimes that's what's needed.
But also, I encourage peoplenot to wait until 20 years later
, when they've been suffering,to get some help with it.
Whether it's therapy orshamanism or sacro or
(44:37):
acupuncture or tai chi, whateverkind of modality was good to
you, it's not too early to talkabout it.
You, when you first experiencetrauma, we expect you to feel
all those symptoms of what wewould call acute stress disorder
.
We don't diagnose PTSD untilsix months after the trauma
because those symptoms in thebeginning are appropriate.
(45:00):
That's our brain and our bodyreleasing the experience.
But if it feels debilitating,if you feel like you can't leave
the house, you can't go to work, you're constantly overwhelmed,
it's not ever too early to getsome help with it.
And as a therapist and as ashamanic practitioner, I'm very
relational.
I work in a relational way anda lot of the time just having
(45:22):
somebody else to witness yourexperience can be so deeply
healing.
It brings me back to communityand the idea that we're in this
place, in our society, wherewe're just expected to go
through these things alone, andI think finding a way not to be
alone, finding a way to bewitness often is really the best
thing.
John Moir (45:41):
That's an important pillar for attending a grief
circle.
It's not from you, don't haveto think of it as that.
I lost my wife or my child orwhatever might be big for you.
And but to come in and talkabout your call at work or to
talk about a threatening eventthat took place on the street
(46:04):
with you or a car accident thatyou're in, these are just as big
as personal grief.
And the grief circles don't.
Many are free, others charge asmall amount just to help cover
costs.
But yeah, and it's thatwitnessing, as you say, that is
so important is the sharing ofwhatever your grief story is,
(46:27):
and I might have mentioned it onanother show that people that
come to a grief circle to talkabout just even the loss of a
species or a loss of a beautifulgrove of trees that was taken
down to be replaced by homes.
A lot of people care verydeeply for these things and they
(46:48):
grieve deeply.
Sharing and having your painwitnessed and your story heard
in a safe, non-threateningenvironment is big.
Just to plug our own littlething on the soulful sorrows, we
have monthly grief circles andwe invite anybody and everybody
(47:09):
who feels that they wouldbenefit by being witnessed to
come.
It's the third Tuesday of eachmonth.
Anyways, alex, I think weshould leave it there, and, like
always, I get such joy speakingwith you and certainly
appreciate deeply your thoughtstoday.
(47:32):
And just so for the show notes,we will definitely be following
up on Tetris and some otherresources.
I found that Paul Levine's bookAwaking the Tiger was a good
place to start with, and what Igot out of that was that our
bodies just want to heal.
They know how to heal if we getout of their way and just let
(47:57):
our bodies not do what they knowbest.
Alex Solomon (48:00):
Anyways, I totally agree.
John Moir (48:01):
Okay, Anyways, thank you Alex, and that will speak
again.
Alex Solomon (48:05):
Thanks so much, John.
John Moir (48:06):
It's been wonderful to chat with you as we wrap up
today's episode.
We've explored approaches toblood and shamanic traditions on
clinical therapy for holistichealing approach to trauma and
grief.
Thank you to our guests, alexSalamance for sharing their
insights on emergency men andeasement to psychotherapy's
structure of highlighting thesense of combining spiritual and
(48:29):
psychological healing.
Please continue thisconversation by leaving your
thoughts on this episode in thecomments section below or email
me at john aturbangriefshamascom.
So we meet again.
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