I meditate to loud guitars, so what?

Tags

breathing, calm place, distraction, grunge, meditation, metronome, mindfulness, music, panic attacks, Pearl Jam, regulation

How I ride.

If you’ve ever met me, you know I’m an early 90s girl through and through. Think flannel, think Bill Clinton buttons, think impassioned arguments about Pearl Jam vs. Nirvana (Just kidding. I don’t talk about Nirvana, ever.)

“Grunge” to me never meant a movement, never meant ONLY dirty, disheveled, disenchanted. Grunge was an evolution of rock and roll, a transition away from the glam and excess of the 80s and into a culture of DIY—homemade mixed tapes, friends designing posters for other friends in bands, garage punk, guitars around campfires with people you love. Basically, love itself, plus creativity and a healthy dose of cynicism. A reincarnation of hippie culture, with a world-wise edge. A consciousness, and a conscience, about being a good citizen, making art, helping others, and, you know, stickin it to the man. Beyond the music and the ripped jeans, those ideals are still my ideals, even if they got warped into marketing tools. Grunge 4eva.

A lot of people ask me why I listen to the same music over and over again.

Dual awareness, or, I learned a new psychology term and will write about it

Tags

anxiety, Babette Rothschild, dual awareness, panic attacks, psychology, psychotherapy, PTSD, The Body Remembers, trauma, treatment methods, writing about anxiety, writing about trauma

For survivors of trauma, I’m learning that the ability to practice dual awareness is vital to healing.

Dual awareness, according to trauma specialist Babette Rothschild, refers to the ability “to recognize that I’m feeling upset right now…that I might even be having a flashback, but what’s going on with me right now has to do with something from the past, and I’m aware of where I am in the here and now, which is separate from that memory of the past.”

In other words, it is an acceptance of the past and the present at the same time.