Reflexes 4: I'm Not Scared
Last week, Luis walked in my door, looked me in the eye, and said “Eve. I went on the escalator. I’m not scared.”
Every weekend, Luis goes to the mall with his family. But while everyone else could hop on the escalator up to the Food Court, Luis was stuck. He would try. He would take a deep breath, walk up to the edge of the moving stairway with the shiny sides – and stop. He just couldn’t do it.
The week before, Luis had come in with his mother, and the two of them told me a story. They had gone to the airport to see off a cousin. His mother had thought that the moving walkway would not be stressful for Luis – unlike the escalator, it doesn’t go up and down. But as soon as they stepped on, Luis grabbed her, crying, “Don’t leave, don’t leave!”
The next day, they happened to have an appointment with one of my colleagues at The Lydian Center. So when Luis and his mother, walked into my office, I was in the fortunate position of being the last person to open the jar. Important brain integration work had been already, but the experience was still a painful and confusing memory.
A traumatic response to an apparently non-traumatic situation spells “trigger.” There had to be something that this moving walkway was identified with somewhere in the back of Luis’ brain. As I was checking for Fear Paralysis and the Moro Reflex, a picture flashed into my head. It was an incubator.
Luis was a preemie. Can you imagine how an infant feels, lying alone in a glass box while Mom walks away? Especially since, developmentally speaking, he belonged in Mom’s womb! For Luis, the glass box of the moving walkway must have triggered the unconscious memory of that other glass box.
Remember that the primitive reflexes are the bricks at the bottom of the pyramid. The hated incubator was way back there, near the beginning of Luis’ life. The memory frozen in that unfinished cry he could not possibly articulate as a baby began to be expressed fourteen years later. Now, he was able to cry out, “Mom, don’t leave!”
And Mom didn’t. The glacier of reflexes that had frozen over when Luis was an infant began to move. The cry was answered, safety was achieved, and the movement could complete itself. The fear was gone.
I hadn’t even known about the escalator phobia. But an escalator, too, is a glass box. And once we integrated those reflexes, no glass box held fear for Luis anymore.
“Let’s write a song to celebrate!” I said.
And we did. And the we made this video. Enjoy!
Comments
Thanks, Margaret, this is SO interesting!
From what I have found from the folks (of every age)
who have come into my office over the years, SO MUCH
TRAUMA would either be avoidable or release-able early
on, if doctors and hospitals prioritized mother-child
bonding. The thing a baby needs most is to be safe and
with mom. Of course, there are medical emergencies that
preclude this, but the “cautionary” measures of
“watching a child in the incubator, or doing emergency
procedures in less-than-emergencies - these experiences
are so long lasting, and lead to all sorts of learning
difficulties, coordination problems, and emotional
issues.
The original bonding window, according to kinesiologist
Renate Wennekes, is about 20 minutes after birth. If
the baby and mother can’t cuddle, look into one
another’s eyes (in the best case most natural scenario,
this is skin-on-skin and involves nursing) - Renate
says that the baby and the mother “believe” that the
other has died, and grief sets in. I wonder how much
post-partum depression really has to do with simply not
having that bonding time after birth?
Of course, it is not always possible. But if you can,
FIGHT to have your baby with you for the first 20
minutes and make that time be safe and loving. And if
you can’t, just take that 20 minutes as soon as you
can, and tell the story to your baby and yourself that
it is right after birth, and you are doing it NOW. It
really really helps. Even when the child is six years
old or sixty years old, only doing it with the memory
of the parent.
For a reflex integration activity, I recommend, Wave
Hello from my 5/25/12 post, Too Scared to Come In.
http://www.ecmma.org/blog/movement_matters/too_scared_to_come_in_moving_into_presence
For a Brain Gym activity, I recommend Hook-Ups from my
9/9/10 post, Movement From the Heart: http://www.ecmma.org/blog/movement_matters/brain_gym_activities
Good luck! Let me know if these help with the
escalators!
Margaret Kelly Oct 20, 2012
Hmmm, this is weird! I have a terrible fear of escalators, too (and I am somewhat uncomfortable with moving walkways) and guess what? I was in an incubator, too! I was born in a car and they kept me confined for a few days (and away from mom!) for some unknown reason - perhaps some sort of sanitary thing? Never thought about why before…