Discussion about Daughter on Bail Story

Written 2000. Updated April, 2014.

Daughter on Bail is as story from life of a young woman who profoundly changes her way of being and acting for the better after a very brief encounter.

This discussion assumes you have read the story.

I had no preconceived idea that I would work with the daughter at all on the night… or what I would do if I had the opportunity...and I had…….as an integral aspect of the Way….no ‘predetermined treatment plan’…..rather…...being open to being…..guided by the moment-to-moment context……and while with the three....daughter mother and father…..….I’m keenly attending to all of them…...and having their conscious…..and especially…...their non-conscious behaviours….guiding me in the moment-to-moment context as to what to do next….and being open to receiving from my non-conscious…..….with an empty conscious …….and this way is what some folk in South East Asia term ‘working from contextualisation’…..

…and the hand reaching experience emerged from context……….as did having her lie down with her parents on either side of her…..with my voice coming from above her head….a very altered state for her……and when she laid down on the rug…..I had no preconceived idea as to what I would do……her breathing was guiding me….and I had no idea that she may ….or would go through the process that she did……and I understand that she had no previous experience in self-healing processes…….

…and the daughter engaged spontaneously in effective transformative self-help….emerging from her awareness of what Heidegger (1962) terms her ‘being-in-the-world’…….Heidegger uses this term in making the point that there is no consciousness….as such…cut off from an object….that is…all consciousness is consciousness of something……be it the matter of a thought……...or of a perception……...and I had created a context where the daughter’s very being was focused on her being-in-her-body-sensing-her-experience-of-being…..and being guided by all of this as to what to do next…..so an underlying theme in this story…..as well as the story of the job applicant is enabling self-help …..the job applicant recognised that he was not ready to rejoin the workforce……and began taking the first steps to further strengthening his wellbeing……and the daughter did all her own change-work…..her being out under a blue sky on green grass on a nice day and having blackness releasing from her belly emerged as metaphoric experience from her own being……

………and I had contributed to her entering this state………..and Heidegger draws attention to the pervasive presence of mood……and the tendency for people’s moods to resonate and attune.....…as did the mood of the daughter …mother…and father….

...and some of the things contributing to her changing states of being-in-the-world….

…being aware of her awareness was something this young women rarely did….hence being aware of her awareness is…for her…a very altered state….

….obtaining the daughter’s permission to use the ‘pebbles’…..and the parents’ comfort with their use…created a context where I could have respectful direct physical ‘contact’ with the daughter via the medium of the rose quartz. ….

………very subtle shifts in awareness may well have accompanied my placing the rose quartz along her midline.,,,and this may have challenged both of her motor cortices….as awareness of the midline of the body activates both the motor cortices on each contra-lateral (opposite) side ……..for when awareness is held on the midline…. the left-hand side is triggering the right motor cortex….and simultaneously right-hand side is triggering the left motor cortex…..creating potential for a neural quest for determining which side is involved in bodymind awareness around the midline……

…and just before meeting up with the daughter on bail I had personally used this awareness of the midline experience for two and a half hours in increasing my flexibility and coordination in preparing for my triple jump in the masters athletics titles……..and when I came to do my jumps…not only did I feel fantastic…as I came down the track everything seemed to go into slow motion and I had all the time in the world to go through the hop……....then the step……...……….and then…………....………the jump …and this happened for each of my six jumps….and I even had time to turn and check out the audience during the step phase…….

…and in doing the awareness of the mid-line experience for the two and a half hours earlier in the day…..I laid down on my back on a rug with arms and legs long….and then ran my focused awareness like a spotlight up and down the mid-line slowly…....using no quartz pieces……..and starting between my eyebrows…….now down my nose….…down to the little dint in my upper lip…between my two front teach….between the two mid front teeth in my lower jaw…through the middle of my chin…down my throat past my Adams Apple…….down to the dint at the top of my breast bone……slowly down my breast bone…….down to my navel……...then slowly down to the middle of my pelvic bridge…and around to my anus….and my tail bone....then slowly back around and all the way up again… …..and doing this slowly…….up and down many times…and I then had my right hand up in the air with my palm facing the left...above the midline…..and then I imagine that a sheet of clear glass is suspended just above my body lengthwise…..and I actually begin using a polishing motion with my actual right palm of my hand….…moving it slowly in a big open circular fashion…extending my shoulder so my right arm can reach way up to the top of the circle….with the palm remaining aligned right above my midline…..

…..then I have my right knee bend and flop sideways so I imagine I am polishing the same glass with the bottom of my foot….then I coordinate my right foot and right hand in the circular ‘polishing’ action….and after so activating the neurology of the right side of my body…….I lower both arm and leg…..and now…the right-hand side of my body is fantastically present and really to me and in comparison the left side of my body is hardly there at all...and on the slow intake of breath……...I imagine that just the right side of my body is becoming very light……..and on this slow in-breath…my right side of my body is floating up towards the ceiling….and this sensation becomes very real for me…..intake of breath……half of my body sliding higher..…then stays where it is…and on the next intake…..it goes a little higher…..and when up near the roof……..my body is in two totally separate experiences…the left side on the ground…the other side very clear and light up near the roof……...and then I slowly……..lower the right half with each exhaling breath…..and when the right side is back on the rug…I do the same on the left side….and when that side is back on the ground…I have one side rise…and then as that side comes down………the other side rises …..and then I start holding awareness on my left leg and my right arm and vice versa…….and I begin imagining that I’m running in very slow motion down the track to do a triple jump....and now I’m imagining lowering my pelvis for maximum thrust upwards as my take-off foot is precisely placed for hitting the take-of-board.....and now I’m very slowly going through the stages of the triple jump……...and this becomes very real…..and I do this many times…..

……..and so all of this slow motion moving supported me entering into this slow-motion experience as I am actually doing the triple jump later in the day…....and I end up triple jumping just short of my best performance from 25 years earlier….and I had had no practice during those 25 years …..though through this awareness of moving process....thanks to the inspired work of Moshe Feldenkrais....I’m re-connecting whole-braining patterning of the whole-of-it in coordinating everything in a balanced way to have maximal balanced effectiveness in completing the hop…then the step…..then the jump movements….concluding with my legs way out in front and bending the knees and slewing the body to the side to have my body land in front of my feet for maximum distance…..

…and now going forward to being back with the daughter on bail…and after that potential purposeful confusion...in her brain’s quest to determine which side is involved in BodyMind awareness around her midline……I place rose quartz on the left side…..activating the right motor cortex …… and then I’m activating the other side……then I return to the mid-line to place rose quartz pieces first above……….and then below the first one …...again having both motor cortices’ involvement…

…...and I place a slightly larger and heavier piece of rose quartz on the left side above her heart………...activating the right motor cortex (right hemisphere)….and when she has her awareness in her heart region….I place my finger on that piece of rose quartz……..further increasing its subjective weight….

.…and my experience is that this works at a very subtle level in creating kinaesthetic ambiguity……...as the person doesn’t know that you’re touching the ‘pebble’….and so I’m now increasing the weight of the pebble over her heart….with her heart area’s emotional links to her hypothalamic limbic region of sensory emotional crossover and integration (Rossi, 1985; Rossi & Cheek, 1986)…

...and on her next in-taking breath……and at a Keypoint in her breath cycle…a Keypoint of maximal link to emotional connection and charge…….I have her jump her awareness to her belly by my suddenly and silently shifting my finger to increasing the subjective weight of the piece of quartz on her belly ……and immediately emotional and other release begins……and…this pattern is……….consistent with Donald Epstein’s Somato Respiratory Integration (1994)……

In the mid 1980’s I attended a workshop introducing a North American Indigenous healer process entailing increasing or decreasing the subjective sense of the weight of a small stone…. typically a small oval pebble from local riverbeds…and Neville Yeomans and I paired up to explore using this process at the workshop...

I’m lying face down on the rug and I’ve said nothing to Neville….

although I have a very strong sense of where I want Neville to put the stone on my back…. and now Neville is placing the stone precisely where I want it….

and I am having this very strong sense coming over me……

Neville knows everything about me………

Back with the daughter…..perhaps right hemisphere creative imagination is involved in her imagining being out in the countryside………..with its connotations of a ‘breath of fresh air’…and this is then linked to releasing from her belly and pelvic region…..and changes in her breathing pattern ……

……neat how the rose coloured quartz accompanies a pink coloured feeling in her chest….with connotations linked to the colour pink….in stark contrast to sensing the jet black colour originally in her belly and pelvic region …..an example of seeing a feeling…..(sensory cross-over….similar to a later story….about the experience of the woman seeing the colours of her pain when she is bitten by a scorpion)….and the daughter never knew that rose quartz had been used…….

The daughter’s lying on the mat between her parents has all the hallmarks of age regression….and accessing state dependent memories…….. learnings……..feelings…….and emotions (Rossi, 1985; Rossi & Cheek, 1986) as does curling up into the foetal position and placing her head in each parent’s lap about being safe….loveable….loved….accepted…...... nurtured…...carefree…..and feeling one’s body-mind and life….is wonderful …

The words I am using in relating to the daughter and her parents are inter-woven with Ericksonian hypnotic language patterns…..

If you want to…....before you go to bed…….I could briefly show you……..how to….become relaxed very quickly……..and……go into deep sleep…….

........and as…..you’re lying there……getting comfortable……perhaps you can…….close your eyes…..now……..and…..just be aware of …….how you are breathing…..and I’ll place some little pebbles on your chest……....to help you…….notice your breathing more…… and help you…notice how your breathing changes as you breathe ……as……your breathing begins to change.…..is that okay....

I commence this first segment with an ‘obviously true’ statement:

….before you go to bed….

The word ‘before’ acknowledges that she is about to go to bed….and then I redirect her awareness to possibilities for the time before she goes to bed with the words:

….I could briefly show you ……how to……

This is followed by the suggestions:

……become relaxed very quickly…

……go into deep sleep…..

As these suggestions are linked to and follow things that are obviously true, the brain tends to accept the suggestions as true and act upon them.

The second segment also starts with ‘obviously true’ statements:

….you’re lying there….

….getting comfortable…..

The daughter was doing both of these things.

Then the words ‘you can’ set up the suggestions:

….close your eyes now…..

….just be aware of how you are breathing…..

The word ‘just’ in the second suggestion implies that she dissociating from everything except her breathing.

The second suggestion also invites her to be aware of her awareness with her awareness focused on her breathing.

The word ‘will’ hidden in ‘I’ll place….’ is the strong form in the range ‘I may’, ‘I can’ and ‘I will’….

The words ‘to help you’ sets up the suggestion…

….notice your breathing more…..

The word ‘more’ implies that she may already have some breath awareness…..following the prior reference:

…and just be aware of how…you are breathing……

The suggestion…

….notice how your breathing changes….

…implies that change will occur….

….as you breathe…

This is another ‘obviously true’ statement.

….as….

‘As’ is another linking term…with links to time…setting up the presupposition…

…your…..breathing begins to change…..

……..is that okay?

The above expression is ambiguous as to what it refers to:

i. the placing of pebbles

ii. being aware of breathing

iii. her breathing changes

Ambiguity may be intentionally used in working with the potential of a person picking up at levels below awareness relevant secondary meanings for transforming (refer Ericksonian literature).

Note that much of the change-work suggestions precede asking her permission….though they are made tentative by commence with the words…

If you want to………

I haven’t said much…and what I’ve said appears to be light and casual…although what I have said is actually very dense in its:

o structure

o suggestions and

o implications

All of the above words are engaging the daughter at her most primary sense-making……...being-in-her-body-sensing-her-experience-of-being …..….which is something she rarely does…..…hence it is for her a very altered state…..

When the daughter first laid down…she had her feet away from the fire with her toes of both of feet pointing to the roof…typical of people with tension in the abductor muscles of the inside of the thighs…..

After the pelvic and belly discharging....her abductor muscles had relaxed allowing her feet to fall to the sides.....there had been generalised relaxing of the muscles throughout her body.....

In supporting the daughter to be more able to help herself (enabling).....I said very little and did very little on the night...and everything I did do was spontaneous unto the moment and guided by context.......I did not have a treatment plan......

A context had been created whereby the daughter and her parents engaged in self-help and mutual-help.

They did their own change work. I supported them to be able to do this...... The daughter’s relating to her own bodymind and to both her parents fundamentally changed.

Recall that the daughter was strongly resisting being helped by experts doing things to her or for her…and the processes used enabled the daughter to readily discover ways to transform herself without any particular sense of what she was doing…….her self-help tended to ‘just happen’ in the flow of her awareness………and with the daughter sensing no imposing by me.......there was nothing for her to resist…….

An aspect of the Way is that the flow of engagements…..has aspects coming into and out of consciousness…..and that for example……some things of significance may……engage their transforming potential…..and then……go from their conscious mind to minimise self-sabotage……..

The daughter’s current state when I first arrive is generalised muscle tension accompanying her ‘sobbing breath’…..short implosive intake through the nose……and then a series of fast and explosive little breaths out of her mouth…..

Now to introduce another subtlety in the processes I am using……….in this ‘Daughter on Bail’ story…..involve what may be called ‘speech acts’…... where the speech is more than an utterance ……the speech is an act with transformative consequences……..and an example of a speech act from another context are the words of the marriage celebrant….

I now pronounce you husband and wife together.

…and these words are a speech act…..and they have transformative consequences……

The following is an example of speech acts used with the Daughter on Bail:

And as you are lying there…getting comfortable……you can……. close your eyes…now…and just… be aware….of how……you are breathing….. and I will place some little pebbles on your chest….to help you……notice your breathing……..…and help you…….notice how your breathing changes as you breathe….……as your breathing begins to change.…..is that okay?

Each of the expressions in italics carries potential to alter the daughter’s awareness of her awareness….with ripple-on effects in her brain-nervous-behavioural connecting………..and as I say these expressions ……her brain……hunts for their meaning…….and she acts…….she…..notices and attends…..to her ‘lying there’…….and that she is……engaging in little adjustments in getting comfortable……and then there is the potential for her……noticing that……she is……noticing how she is breathing….and ….then upon hearing…..

…..notice how….. your breathing changes as you breathe…….

……the daughter may…..notice…her…shift to full-belly breathing….and ….. begin noticing her self changing….and…liking the changes….and attending to…..noticing other aspects of her sensing…….

…and by my aware attending I can see…..and sense the consequences of my speech acts…….her acts……….and I ensure that my speech acts are fully congruent with…...and complementing her acts…....and her subjective experience……and that my speech acts are also precisely timed to support my behavioural acts ……and also timed to meld with her experience.....

…….and I will place some little pebbles on your chest….to help you ……..notice your breathing more……..

An example of this precise timing in the context of…..

….notice your breathing……

was the precise touch of the rose quartz over the heart at a particular instant in the breath cycle linked to maximal emotional change……and then taking her awareness of subtle ‘heart’ energy of that moment down to her belly by touching the rose quartz on her belly….precisely accompanied by the speech act…..

…..just to notice……. what’s happening down here….

With both parts of the expression suggesting her behavioural acts……..

In telling this Daughter on Bail story I have used a storytelling pattern I heard used by Neville and Aboriginal Geoff Guest, whom I mentioned at the start of the book. The pattern is termed ‘multiple embedded metaphors’ by American Stephen Lankton (1983) in his book about Milton Erickson. I attended a workshop by Stephen Lankton in the 1980s held in a zoo with monkeys swinging in the trees looking at us being inspired by them in playfully learning about Ericksonian language, using metaphors, and therapeutic storytelling. The pattern is to tell one or more stories embedded within other stories.

Recall that I had half told the story about the Daughter on Bail, and then on the theme of her sobbing breath, commenced telling another story about the sobbing breath of the executive job candidate, and then told a brief story about my learning to notice breathing patterns at workshops arranged by Neville. I then finish the story about the daughter.

Breaking the stories up in these ways may enrich the way the receiver’s brain responds to the storytelling at the conscious and non-conscious levels (refer Lankton, 1983, and the Ericksonian literature). For example, if you are telling three stories you may use the following sequence:

o Half tell the first story

o Half tell the second story

o Fully tell the third story

o Finish the second

o Finish the first

This tends to have the person responding to the third embedded story, though completely forgetting it by the time they have heard the finish of the second and first stories so they do not begin questioning and sabotaging the transforming induced by the third story. Often the three stories may have different foci such as changing:

o beliefs

o behaviours

o emotional states

Notice the way I shifted from the Daughter on Bail to telling the embedded story about the job candidate.

This sobbing breath of the daughter reminds me of a time when I was in a human resources role for a large multinational company ……

I used an element of the first story - the ‘sobbing breath’ – to switch to the embedded story by the words ‘reminds me of a time’. Those words allow the listener to track where this new story is coming from and going to. Refer Lankton, (1983) for other patterns for switching between stories.

The embedded story or stories may amplify or extend learning and transforming aspects of experience for readers of these stories……

…….for example in the case of the business job applicant…..attending to subtle cues….and reframing the context…by implication…..and behaviour from ‘job interview’…to…‘receiving caring support’…...with a consequent change in my role from ‘interviewer’…to…‘carer’…

…though at the same time I am fulfilling my role to the organisation I am working in……without abusing the confidences that I had received in my carer role…...and I ensured that we did not appoint a person who was not ready……or currently able to carry the stress the State Manager job entailed ……

There was linking involved in leaving the embedded ‘Executive Interview’ story and returning to the ‘Daughter on Bail’ story:

….now back to the Daughter on Bail…..I did not mention her sobbing breath pattern to her…….

This linking takes the listener from the executive office to another time and place – being with the mother, father, and daughter lying on the rug on the floor in front of the fire. I am then able to go on with the ‘Daughter on Bail’ story.

Also, recall that just before the daughter rolled into the foetal position and placed her head on her mother’s lap that her face had changed to looking ‘angelic’. One of the aspects of her physiology when I first arrived was that the daughter had massive tension in her lower jaw.

You may want to try this experience…..

sit comfortably in a chair

and allow all of the soft parts of your lower jaw to relax…..

and have your tongue settle and spread in your lower jaw….

…..the tip lightly against your lower teeth…

……while now… become aware of your breathing…….

……and now… do a long breath in…..

and then….. letting that out slowly……

…..and now breathe…and… be aware of your breathing for a few breaths …..and now… you may… have more awareness of your breathing……

and… noticing what happens to your breathing….

….as you suddenly…tense your jaw……

What did you notice?

…many people report that as soon as they tense their jaw……

their breathing stops…and then shifts to very shallow breathing…….

…..and the tension in the jaw triggers tension in the throat…

and this tends to radiate to…..

involve tensing in the intercostal muscles between the ribs…..

… and with throat tension…constricted ribs…..and shallow breathing…

one soon tends to get ‘short of breath’…..

and from this state…..it’s a short shift to the sobbing breath…..

….and you may also want to experiment with your own experience…

……..just to discover how these things may be linked……

…so…..perhaps……playing with tensing your jaw

and watching for changes in your throat……

……..and perhaps noticing the increase in tension in your rib cage….

and then exploring how you can…be relaxing the tension in your ribs

and feel what tends to happen to your jaw tension…as you do that….

…..and another one is varying the pitch of your thinking…

….for example...think in a high pitch….

…and notice what happens to your throat……

…and then changing to thinking in a low pitch

…just to notice the changes...

……and then think very fast… or…..

Perhaps...say the alphabet very fast…..

and feel how this effects your heart rate……

……and another….think fast with a very high pitch and

you may end up all choked up with palpitations……

my mothers worry strategy!…..

…….jaw tension tends to also be linked to a number of problematic emotional states like resentment and anger……

…so….experiencing softening all of the soft parts of your jaw....

……to notice the difference…..and how that feels….

……and you may remember to….experience these letting go processes at night in bed…..or for changing states in everyday life.....

…….and for slowing down…and then stopping thoughts……..think in a ….slow…… soft…sleepy whisper…and say your name……

as if the voice is coming from a metre or two behind you…

..and listen to the silence between whispering your name…

……..as if inviting yourself…..to……go to sleep……now……

Right! Back to alertness….the daughter’s experience on the rug after her pelvic release had generalised to include relaxing her intercostal muscles between her ribs……easy light breathing…and the relaxing had further generalised through her jaw and throat……and through her face to help constitute ‘the angelic face’…….

The ‘Daughter on Bail’ story also embraces the theme ‘how one may negotiate entry into a healing relationship with people who are resistant to having any support’.

Another theme....the Daughter on Bail context was framed by implication .....the Daughter was framed literally by her mother and father on her sides and me at her head while she is lying on the rug with the warmth and sounds of the fire with all of the implications of being like a young child again.

Much of human doings are ‘what we always do’, and doings that are ‘spur of the moment’ and done without prior reason. If asked their reason for the doing, people often have to hunt for a reason, even fabricate one. This is particularly so for that subset of behaviours that involve ’non-knowing’ ‘denial’ ‘defence’ or ‘attack’. If threatened, people may move to cringe and go ‘on their back foot’, figuratively and literally.

People being aware of their experiencing of their doings generates subtle shifts in cross-sensory inputs merging with emotional and body feeling states, and along with this, what meanings all this has may be absorbed in a whole-of-system way; what Rossi and Cheek call ‘state-dependent memory and learning’ (Rossi, 1985; Rossi & Cheek 1986).

The daughter on bail changed massively with very few words used by the daughter or myself. She stopped her addictive and self-destructive behaviours and became friendly, appreciative, caring, respectful of her self and parents, and took on a very different set of norms and a different set of normative emotions. This happened. There was little will or intent. How do we replicate this? These are the themes woven through ‘Coming to one’s Senses – By the Way.

Some speculating on what was going on with that Daughter out on Bail ………I sense all of this took place with very little cortical level processing by the daughter…….and I further sense that while lying on her back….her awareness shifted from an experience of being tired and tense to…… being relaxed lying on soft green grass out in a green field…….with the blackness spurting out of her pelvic region ….then to returning to being conscious of lying on her back between her parents with her knees up......a very typical position for a very young baby...…..with this having age regression overtones accessing state-dependent memory of…....and positive psycho-social-emotional resources of…...being now under five years old again laying on the floor…..with her parents sitting on the floor each side of her…...and looking down at her ……just as they were on the night I was there………and from this knees up position lying on her back…..changing to the other significant position of the baby….the roll to the side into the very relaxed foetal position and placing her head on her mother’s lap……..with this perhaps being accompanied by re-accessing of a pre-cortical holistic integrated set of experiences of being in the world..…..and accompanying neurochemicals as correlates to her experience……that included a fully re-formed sense of ‘who I am’…….and being loveable ……and loved……

This allows accessing of a whole and new integrated set of neurochemical states independent from and not involved in addictive states, or emotional upheaval relating to the ectopic pregnancy.

Perhaps the daughter’s precortical aspects embodied entering into accessing again her 5 year old state of being-in-the-world and re-accessing that experience for her present 19 year-old self………and she pre-cortically re-experienced living this new/old way and liked it…..and perhaps the cortical was informed of this from her precortical (Pert, 1997; Rossi, 1885; Rossi & Cheek, 1986).