A reader recently expressed something that has also come up in a recent consult. Many, and likely most of us, experience this at least some of the time when living with chronic symptoms: a level of exhaustion with the struggle, the amount of effort and work and time it takes for this chronic illness journey, and what it takes for the process of healing. Below are 12 tips for pendulating in trauma and chronic illness that help relate to that difficult place with more ease (and sometimes even with fun).
Reader Question. Julia recently left this question in a comment on one of my blog posts:
I feel that my health is worsening as I age, despite trying many of the tools suggested, but fundamentally I am so exhausted from the struggle that I’m not sure I have it in me to keep going, even if that makes me feel worse.
I see a trauma-informed therapist and have other treatments, try to take care with my diet (with varying degrees of success), but the physical pain and discomfort, with accompanying low mood, mean that I’m more likely to zone out and distract myself rather than do the work.
I’m sure you must come across this often in your work with clients and wonder if you have any advice when feeling so low and overwhelmed makes it seem impossible to get motivated to make the necessary changes in lifestyle.
Here’s a more detailed response to this important question than I could provide in a comment. Thank you Julia for giving me the go ahead to share your question in a post.
1. Permission to Take a Break
Of note here is that Julia is already working with a trauma-informed therapist. This is great and already a lot when we are struggling to do more. Trauma work is intense and working with symptoms is generally easier with another person to help regulate our systems (which most of us did not get enough of in childhood, hence: symptoms in adulthood). It also helps minimize or prevent overwhelm. When we’re struggling, we can leave that work “in the office with the therapist” and return to it when we go back.
2. Permission to Not Have to Work So Hard
We also often need permission to not have to work so hard. This is especially true if we have a lot of symptoms breathing down our necks, which is stressful in and of itself. I’ve personally found that the trauma work takes time before I see a helpful effect on my symptoms, especially system-wide or severe symptoms. So, even if you aren’t doing “work” all the time, it’s okay. Your body and nervous system often appreciate that too. This is what we think of as pendulating in trauma therapy.
Pendulating is a concept I learned in Somatic Experiencing (SE) training, a body-based approach for healing trauma developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D. Pendulating in trauma is about nudging our nervous systems to move back and forth instead of getting stuck or staying in the extremes of one direction (fight and flight / hypervigilance / anxiety / sympathetic states) or the other (freeze / numbness / dissociation / brain fuzz / fatigue / hopelessness / dorsal vagal parasympathetic states). Pendulating in trauma is about heading for the neutral or the positive – the place that has more sense of safety, equanimity, hope or acceptance, a sense of connection, or simply a sense of “neutral.” This is how I use the concept in chronic illness.
3. A Plus Side of “Zoning Out,” With One Tweak
As many of you know I just took 2 years off from blogging and from the topics of trauma and chronic illness because I craved a break from it. Thinking about and working with trauma (and / or chronic illness) is typically hard work. It often means being with or exploring painful feelings. So is living with chronic illness, on top of working with and learning about and trying to manage and heal symptoms.
Supporting the process of healing when we experience weariness and exhaustion from the struggle involves pendulating towards the middle. One natural and easy way to do this is to look for the impulse of WHAT YOU WANT (#4). And to then make room for that (#8) and add one tweak. The tweak is to use a percentage of your attention to notice anything neutral or positive that you experience when you lean into what you want (#11 below) while the rest of you focuses or “zones in or out” on what you’re doing. In this way you are pendulating your attention – focussing on the diverting or fun stuff with part of you – while touching in occasionally into the effects of this experience – and then going back to what you are doing that calls to you. Our nervous systems pendulate naturally in health. Pendulating in trauma and chronic illness facilitates this capacity for self-regulation. It reminds and supports our bodies to shift into what they inherently know how to do. Here are more tips for the process of pendulating with more details for each of the next steps.
4. What You Want Can Support the Smart Vagus
Trauma work to support healing and to chip away at symptoms of chronic illness does not have to be “all work all the time.”
When I took time off during the past two years, it was to do something I was yearning for, which was to paint and play in the dirt. This process of doing what calls to you actually supports the social nervous system or “Smart Vagus.” This is what pendulating in trauma facilitates. This is what we’re growing back in. This is the branch of the nervous system that helps regulate and naturally integrates and suppress impulses of fight, flight and freeze. When this Ventral Vagus is in charge we aren’t working the trauma through thinking and will power (which is typically ineffective for processes happening in our bodies). And so we don’t have to stay caught in survival mode. Following what you want – with a few tweaks – is a win win. It’s how you can consciously support your body’s natural ability to weave back and forth. This is also how it integrates harder things and painful old (and new) things.
5. Start With What You Want
What calls to you? What are you drawn towards? What would be restful, or pleasurable, or a “diversion” or “distraction.” Or peaceful? What does your body want?
You may have an answer immediately, such as: I want to take a nap. I just want to sit for a while with my partner, or a friend, or in this chair with my dog next to me – and to do nothing. I wish I could paint a small canvas. Or draw. Or just stare at that picture of the ocean for an hour. I want to go for a hike. Or, I just want to watch movies all day.
I took the pictures in this post during a period when my fatigue was particularly intense over 10 years ago. It was such a pleasure to be able to play with my camera. To walk slowly. Not have to go far. Sit down on a rock. Look at flowers. David and I were in Placitas, New Mexico for a few days. The beauty in these bright spots of color that popped out of high mesa desert-like landscapes has been a metaphor for me about what is possible even when things seem stark and drought-ridden with my health journey. In their own way, these blooms invite us to pendulate our attention – between the quiet browns and grays and gray greens of the general landscape, to the brilliant spots of color in between, and back again.
6. Negative Beliefs Often Stall Us
When you don’t immediately know what you or your body wants, it may be because you have a negative belief about it. This judgement can then prevent us from either doing what we want or allowing ourselves to realize this is something we want.
This is common.
Negative beliefs are one sneaky way trauma prevents us from our natural capacity for pendulating in trauma. The pendulation of work some, play some; eat some, digest some; run some, catch-your-breath some; feel fear because of something real in the present or the past, address it or act on it or make space for the impulse to complete, and then return to a sense of peace, connection or equanimity.
Negative beliefs are not your fault. They generally come from what we learned and were told by our caregivers growing up. It comes from our parents’ own learned beliefs and experiences. It can thus persevere through generations. Our culture adds judgement too, such as for slowing down or wanting to “do nothing” for periods of time, because our Western society values productivity over the time needed for rest, relaxation and recovery.
A negative set of beliefs I witnessed in my family towards another person at one point was an attitude of “You’re on vacation and here you are just sitting around all morning drinking coffee?! You should be out playing! Visiting! Going to the river! You must be lazy.”
Other examples of negative beliefs could be:
- Naps take too much time.
- Adults don’t take naps (or need naps).
- I have too much to do to sit around and “drag my feet all day.”
- If I don’t work on (the trauma / my diet / my symptom etc it means I’m giving up, not doing it right, failing, will for certain get worse etc.
7. We May Need Time to Learn What We Want
If you don’t quite know what you want, it may be that you need to slow down and make a little space to listen. It could be 5 minutes of space. While shopping for groceries. During a walk. Before bed. Or you might simply ask your body (or a symptom) what it might crave or want or need or what might feel supportive. And then pay attention for a while to see what arises while you do other things. The answer might arise as an image. As an impulse. It could be very subtle and come as a whiff that is just barely there, “I really just want to stay home and cook this weekend.” The reward for looking for these ways to pendulate out of work-hard-mode is that you get to do something that might be fun. Or easy. Or connecting. Or resourcing. Or restful.
8. Allow Yourself To Try It
Once you have an idea, allow yourself to try it. There are often barriers to this (the negative beliefs, the perception you are wasting your time etc). Know this, and perhaps gently give it a try anyway, such as just for 5 minutes. See how it feels to the parts of you that want something other than “working on trauma” all the time.
Start with the smallest, easiest, shortest impulse or craving. Keep it simple so there’s as little hurdle to overcome as possible. So it’s as easy to jump in or begin as possible. Maybe it’s drawing for 2 minutes when you get up in the morning or before bed.
If you just want to watch movies, see if you can start with one movie and then reassess afterwards (instead of planning an all day binge, for example). This tends to be easier on our nervous system, especially if we are in phase of our illness where our body and symptoms are especially sensitive to stress. A movie might shift our state and leave us feeling better or wanting to do something else if we make room to check in with ourselves after each movie. Pendulating in trauma means noticing any feeling that is neutral or positive, which you have just prompted by doing something you or your body wants, AND THEN noticing something about it. Paying attention to notice a decreasing of tension in the pit of your stomach, a hint of lessened pain where it’s often held in a knot, an image that feels pleasing, an impulse to simply take an easy breath. This anchors the experience of something non-threatening into your body and nervous system. It sends a signal of safety. This is the tweak with penduatling – this little check-in. And then you can put your attention back on to your activity.
9. Pendulating in Trauma: Keep it Small
Honoring the impulse for something that is not “work” or that is not overtly “trauma work” is healthy. It is sane. Even better, it actually supports our nervous system to have the positive experiences they didn’t get enough of earlier in our lives. It is a way of “working” the trauma healing journey, without it feeling so much like work.
This is pendulating.
When we follow a gentle impulse, it offers our entire system an experience that feels “other than.” Other than stressful. Other than traumatic. Other than dangerous. Other than scary.
if you are watching movies, see if you can start with a movie that is less likely to be triggering of fear / anxiety / high drama so you don’t add more stress to your system. Or maybe that’s what your system craves and it’s a way to work something through. See what you are drawn to. Check out how it feels. Maybe you watch something that is comforting. This can convey a sense of safety or connection to your own system. It can pendulate your system away from fear and towards a hint of peacefulness or comfort. Even 1 ounce of that is helpful to your nervous system. Notice what that feels like by dipping in once in a while with your attention and saying hello to yourself during the movie to notice something about the experience that is concrete and objective. This conveys the message of safety to your brain and body. This is weaving in a network of safety in a gentle way.
10. Difficult Feelings are Natural
Doing something pleasurable or restful or relaxing may trigger difficult feelings. This is because enjoyment or pleasure or slowing down will often have been perceived negatively somewhere in your past. This is why it can be difficult to do as an adult. This is very common for those of us with chronic illness.
This is where “gentle trauma work” comes in. Where “less” can be “more.”
11. A Small Amount of Your Attention Is Enough
While you are doing something enjoyable or gentle or while you are ‘non-doing” and resting, allow some small percentage of your attention for that check in with what this feels like.
Maybe you use 5% of your attention to look for a sensation or an emotion or an image associated with what this positive or neutral experience is like, while the other 95% enjoys the movie or the distraction or focussing on something like cooking or hanging out with your kitten. Maybe it’s 99% of your attention focussed on the fun or zoning out activity.
During this practice of pendulating, if you feel a symptom, you can gently notice it with a small part of your attention too. Acknowledge it. This is pendulating in the other direction – which is also natural and how our nervous systems gently work in health. If you have the capacity, you might offer it a little compassion, “I’m here right now. We’re slowing down / playing / taking a break for a moment. It’s okay. We’re okay.” If you don’t have the bandwidth for much, acknowledging instead of ignoring is enough.
12. We Keep Learning & Growing. Don’t Give Up.
Don’t give up. We keep learning. We keep growing when we pay even a little attention some of the time. Pendulating practice helps increase our capacity for energy, feelings, and connection over time. Give yourself permission to take time for yourself. Know that it takes time, for a lot of us, for the trauma work to change things on the inside and with our physiology. Remember that you are not alone in this work. And that you are not alone on this journey.
Summary
To summarize, my perspective is that symptoms and chronic illness reflect a nervous system caught in states of survival, such as fight, flight, and freeze. The process of healing involves supporting our nervous systems to shift back and forth towards states that are more “ventral vagal.” The social nervous system inherently holds a greater sense of safety within it, and when we can access more of that state, our bodies have greater capacity to metabolize old traumas. Making room to notice and honor what our bodies want or enjoy helps us access this ventral vagus. Noticing what it’s like to listen for these signals and to engage, even a little, is a way to work gently with these often tender places. It’s a way of metabolizing trauma that does not feel like having to “work all the time” on the journey of healing trauma and chronic illness. Pendulating is also something you can take with you. It becomes part of our toolkit for healing and engaging with all the joys and mess and surprises that come with being human.
Download PDF of “12 Tips for Pendulating”
Related Posts
Here are other blog posts & tips specifically for working with symptoms in this way
See 15 Steps for Healing for more on supporting your Social Nervous System
My name is Amy. I’m soon to be 55 and feel I’ve wasted most of my adult life dealing with trauma from my past. Like others it has manifested into several autoimmune conditions that has frozen me from fully living my life. Your blog has helped me to understand how I’ve gotten here and that I’m not alone. Thank you for that.
My question is how do I get back on the proverbial horse and find a purpose when I have so isolated myself and hid from the world for so long? I don’t even know who or what I want any longer and aging has terrified me.
Fear of worsening symptoms and loss of attractiveness coinciding with others realizing I am not as healthy as I look from the outside has made me not wanting to be social. Any advice on what to do to get started?
HI Amy,
You describe the poignant situation so many of us have been living with – how our lives have been altered in their trajectories by the effects of old trauma. I don’t have a straightforward answer or a clear one at this point although I have many thoughts.
I’m not sure that the answer is to get “back on the horse.” I suspect you have a different horse at this point of your life. And maybe always have. In large part because there are likely a great many things you have learned that have changed you. Not only in the direction of what has been lost, but also in the direction of what you may have learned about yourself and from your journey. Living with chronic illnesses is often supported by self care, which we may not have received as children. It can lead us to be more tender with ourselves, even when we may also feel depressed / frustrated and so much more.
A question is – how do you discover what this new horse is? and who you are? and what you want? I would go “basic.” Baby steps. With listening perhaps more or more deeply or in another way. What appeals to you or draws you that might be gentle and involve compassion for yourself? You might find support in the “working with symptoms posts.” They are a lot about this – and share what I’ve been learning along the way. Some of it will be familiar to you, some will hopefully be new and helpful. Here’s one on listening (7 Tips) and another on Making Time for Things that Resource Us. These seem like small things in the face of our symptoms – but they are building relationship with self. You are likely already doing this. And going deeper can help answer your questions. It includes making more space to help be with the fear. That is a great place to work with that does not involve having to “be social.” We’ve had to slow down and isolate in many ways in order to make space for our systems. Sometimes I think of it as simply what mothering requires – learning to mother / parent / better love ourselves.
I, too, find myself avoidant of being very social – in part because it often replicates old attachment patterns from a world where many are “living fast” and a culture not supporting soft emotional states, vulnerability and connection. Establishing relationship with what draws you is a supportive place to begin.