no 26

Have you accidentally looked into the sun or bright light and then looked away, the image burned into your eyelids? That’s an afterimage.

Fall is here in earnest, at least in certain parts of the island. I visited Asahidake, the highest point in Hokkaido, where the foliage and first snowfall arrive earliest. It made me think about why I’ve been seeking nature and power spots for so long. Here's what I saw, heard, or sensed that’s stayed with me in the past week.

A trigger warning for this week's reading- the third section, 'Message from My Body: It Works,' talks about trauma response, identity, and culture. While I don't talk about the source of my past trauma, I talk about (Fight, Flight) Freeze, Collapse, or Fawn. There's a trigger warning ahead of the section to let you know where it starts.

Thanks for joining me again this week.

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Messages from My Body: Power Spot

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t yet visited Asahidake in the two years I’ve called this island home. Nor could my nearest and dearest. Apparently, all self-respecting Hokkaido residents make at least one pilgrimage in their life. We took off for the weekend to make respectful islanders of my daughter and me.

Asahidake is the Japanese occupying name of the mountain. The Indigenous Ainu name for the mountain is Kamui-Mintara, or the "playground of the gods," and known to be an energy spot. It's otherworldly, especially above the tree line. The fields, hills, and valleys leading up to the mountain are breathtaking in their own right.

Visiting allowed me to appreciate the decision I made to leave Tokyo. I feel better connected to my family, better connected to the people I love, and better connected to myself.

Top left to Right: Vineyard at sunset / Sunflower field drawing my thoughts toward Ukraine / The accidental beauty that is Shirogane Aoi Ike (Blue Pond); initially a mudslide management project / My daughter, me, and fumaroles at Asahidake / Looking back at the playground of the gods / Shirohige (White Moustache) Falls.

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Messages from Conversation: Tokyo, the Ex

It’s impossible to revisit a place, whether a city, a neighborhood or a school.

I shared with friends from my Saturday journaling group that I don't think of places as a geographic coordinate. Instead, a place is where latitude, longitude, time, and people intersect.

“I was visiting from Kyoto, sitting in a cab at a long red light. I looked out the window and asked myself whether I could ever live here again. I didn’t know what the answer would be, but as soon as the question formed in my mind, I had a reply: ‘Tokyo. I love you. You’ll always have a special place in my heart. And we are never, ever getting back together again.’ I laughed and suddenly felt very light-hearted and clear.”

It's remembering why I loved them and why it didn’t work— knowing and creating new boundaries based on our current relationship instead of defaulting to the one from the past. Staying attentive and amazed at how we’ve grown and who we’ve become. Curious about the possibility of an emerging platonic friendship. It applies to places, maybe even things, as it does to people. All of this allows me to enjoy what’s in front of me.

Seeing Tokyo as an ex restored my footing during my visit and exorcised ghosts from the chaotic chapters of my previous life.

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Message from My Body: The Work Works

Trigger warning: While there aren’t any details about the source of my childhood trauma, today I’m sharing on identity, culture, and trauma response: Fight/Flight/Collapse/Freeze/Fawn.

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I admit. I’m a personal development junkie. I’m curious about different ways to heal, different ways to befriend my mind, my nervous system, my emotions, and my body.

If you were with me this summer, you know about my riptide accident in Hawaii. I’m so happy and grateful that my sessions with my osteopath worked so well on the PTSD I was diagnosed with. I’m back to enjoying being in the onsen baths and the water at the beach.

The thing is, I never imagined it would have such an extraordinary effect on my life outside of the water.

I’m calm and confident in sharing my thoughts. I do what I want without overthinking or overplanning to accommodate everyone first. I’m having courageous conversations with my parents without feeling stressed. I’m deepening my relationship with them. I’m learning so much about my daughter and about being compassionate with myself around my clumsiness in letting her know. I feel connected, present, and loving. More clients want to work with me. A client added an extra zero to my speaking engagement fee. Changes continue to abound.

Since my latest treatment, I'm sensing a "cushion" after triggers: I have more bandwidth to notice I’m triggered. I can (for the most part) decide how I want to respond instead of automatically being carried into freeze, collapse, or fawn. (I'm not so much of a fight or flight person.)

That made me super curious: what would life be like if I felt safer? What if I started work on past trauma? The older, deeper ones? What if I let my body in on the healing this time (unlike the cognitively focused talk therapy I’ve experienced in the past)?

After stalling for two months, I dove off the high dive and called my osteopath. It took me eight weeks to call him because I was scared.

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Culture, Identity, Trauma.

"If I worked on the trauma, what would happen to me? Would I be erasing a part of myself? I know I'd have so much relief, but who would I be without it?"

How weird and valid as thoughts. In addition to being scared, I was a little conflicted. After all, being small (humility misinterpreted), self-silencing (deep listening misinterpreted), self-effacing (respect misinterpreted), and self-debting (generosity misinterpreted) are not only trauma responses, but they're coded into the culture I've been raised. They're ingrained in my identity as Japanese and as a woman. I'm reflecting on inter-generational and cultural trauma and how family and societal power systems shape culture and behavior.

I knew, on some level, I was being held hostage by my trauma and probably my culture, too. I felt like I developed some weird sort of Stockholm syndrome with them.

Time to cut loose. I’m booked in for an appointment on the 14th.

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Trauma and Afterimage

This brings me to a specific curiosity about why I started writing Afterimage. I remember starting the newsletter as a homework assignment for a writing course. Something tells me I chose the framework of Afterimage as an intuitive practice to prepare myself for PTSD work: extricating past senses from the present.

Afterimage has become a practice to remind my body and the rest of myself that I'm here in the present, in a safe place-- instead of the places in the past that have made me sense danger. It's also becoming a platform to bring awareness to the power of staying in the present moment. It shifts our ways of being and our experience of reality.

Just before we hung up, my osteopath said,

“Trauma causes our life trajectories to move off course and stray from our authentic selves. Trauma work is a way to take out the bramble, recalibrate and rejoin the river of your Life and the flow of your Life Energy.”

I've witnessed myself already in motion, unaware I'd waded into the river. I’m ready to jump in.

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