Restoring Goodness

Steve Merli is a healer. I first got to know Steve during an expedition of the Landmark Trees Project. I was with him, Richard Carstensen, John Caouette, and Sam Skaggs on Sam's former boat, the Arcturus.  We were coming back from Upper Hoonah Sound, where we had cataloged one of the last major swaths of large Sitka Spruce forests on the Tongass. Steve watched me as we rounded the southern shores of Admiralty Island and asked me, "Marc, do you get headaches? Do you have one right now?"

I did have a headache, so bad I thought I was going to start crying. And I had been having headaches almost daily since adolescence. As I told Steve about my headaches and the TMJ that caused them, he nodded.  He told me that he had found that people like me that clenched their jaw were storing a lot of energy there for a reason. There was something that needed to be said to ourselves or others that we were holding in. He did bodywork at the time and said he could work on me. But I would need to be in a safe space, because once he started working on me, stuff would start coming out. And I would need to be prepared to deal with it.

I filed that information away and soon forgot about it. Months later, I was totally fed up with grinding my teeth and night and waking up every day with an eye-watering headache. I thought I would try acupuncture. I went to see Suzy Cohen who she deftly needled my jaw and head. I had never had acupuncture but I was intrigued by its potential to relieve my pain. Sure enough, I felt relief afterwards from my tension. But I was also flooded by the blackest of griefs. I would go back to my home (which was coincidentally Sam's sailboat, the Arcturus) and weep. Jessica, who I was then dating, had no idea of what to do with this. And I didn't either. It just came and came and was so raw and elemental I couldn't even name it.

Months later I remembered the conversation with Steve and decided to go see him. He worked on me, giving me massage and working on some of the points in my head and jaw.  And he would let me express my emotions.  I would be there on the table, moaning and weeping, and feeling a bit strange about the whole thing. But in time, the headaches lessened and the emotional ballast gradually fell away.  I still get headaches once in a while, during times of acute stress.  And I wear a  mouthguard at night to stop me from grinding my teeth to dust. But I feel like my body has said what it needed to say and there is much less tension in my jaw.

Recently Steve told me he left doing bodywork and now works with trauma victims. I was intrigued. Steve was such a good masseuse. I knew he must be onto something good if he left his old work for something else. He told me he'd been working with something called Somatic Experience (c). I started to think maybe he could help me again. I ran into him at Costco one day and started telling me about my experience on the Juneau Icefield. He said he'd like to read my story. I sent him my blog. After reading it, he called me and said he thought he might be able to help me.

Steve Merli, in his studio on Seward St.

I've now seen Steve three times. I'm not exactly sure what happens when I see him, but I know it is powerful. I feel like I am coming into myself gradually each time we meet. We've talked a lot about the theory behind his work.  And every session, he lays hands on me, and he helps my body deal with the traumatic response that it is still holding withing itself.

It's only recently occurred to me that I've had several instances of trauma recently, many of which I've written about in this blog. The accident on the icefield, the injury to my shoulder, and my recent surgery are all traumatic experiences. My body did what it was supposed to do in those situations, and triggered my traumatic response.  Now I need to let my body know that it is okay now, and that everything is all right.

Steve loaned me the book of his teacher, Peter Levine, titled "In an Unspoken Voice: 
How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness." I've only just started reading it. But I am fascinated by Levine's theories of how the body naturally responds to trauma and how we can work with our bodies to restore a normal state, or goodness.

Steve has explained to me that it shouldn't be called PTSD, because it's not a disorder.  What happens to us in trauma is natural.  We just need to understand how to unwind the state our body goes into during trauma to unlock the pain and suffering that has been labeled a "disorder" by our medical community.  

Steve has told me it's our brain stem that takes over during traumatic experiences. Our reptilian brain, the stem is responsible for regulating our metabolism, breathing, and kicks in when our lives are threatened. When we go completely out of our comfort zone, like I did on the icefield, our natural response is to freeze, which is exactly what happened to me. It's a good response in a potentially fatal situation, and often works to save our life. But then, if we don't let our body release, it still thinks that it is in danger, and holds this state of freeze for potentially a long, long time.

So I've been working with Steve on talking with my brain stem. He's helping me learn to get back into my body, to connect to my body's relationship with physical objects. He's helping me practice being alert and relaxed at the same time, something that is challenging for me. My body's proclivity is to fall asleep when I'm relaxed. But a few times, working with Steve, I've come into this clarity of experience, where my mind and body feel together in an alert yet restful space.

The human body is an amazing animal. I feel mine changing through this work with Steve. I feel more grounded. more in touch with myself than I've felt in a long time. And just knowing that what happened to me on the icefield was a natural response has been greatly empowering. I had always wondered why my mind and body slowed down so much during the rescue. Understanding that by brain stem did what it was wired to do has brought me comfort.

I'm looking forward to working more with Steve after he gets back from sailing from Hawaii.  I do feel the goodness being restored.  And for that I give thanks.  Thank you, Steve.