‘I just can’t cope anymore,’ she sobs through the screen, ‘everything that’s happening in the world right now, and this broken body of mine. I’m just so weary of it all.’ I listen, simultaneously searching for an opening; experience has taught me that I’ll have to find a way to intervene somewhere between the tears and the relentless stream of words.
‘Your body isn’t broken,’ I begin, ‘it’s like a hungry child that’s being ignored. That child won’t suddenly stop crying; it will only try to make itself heard with more and more noise.’ Anouck was referred to me by her psychologist. They are still working together and have managed to untangle many of the threads from her traumatic childhood, but as Bessel van der Kolk so aptly puts it: ‘The Body Keeps the Score’. Anouck’s mind is mostly on board, but dropping down into her body to truly listen—that is still far too daunting.
Meanwhile Anouck’s body, which has already undergone extensive medical testing, has triggered so many alarms that it sometimes feels beyond saving to her. Her symptoms fluctuate and pull her in every direction: migraine attacks, tendonitis in the right shoulder with pain radiating to the shoulder blade and neck, nausea and cramps after eating, insomnia, and a profound fear of stepping outside.
The light of her life? Her little dog, ‘Beatle’. Beatle is present at every session; as animatedly as his owner speaks, he matches her energy by bounding on and off her lap. He frequently licks the computer screen or nudges his snout against the camera—usually at the exact moment Anouck closes her eyes and turns inward. Always together, safe indoors. Because Beatle is afraid to go outside, too. As a loyal companion, he isn’t just the protector at the gate to her inner self; he mirrors her life. Suddenly, I realize I haven’t seen him yet today.
Gently but firmly, I guide Anouck inward. Not to run away from her grief and desperation, but to try and stay with it, to listen. A body doesn’t speak in words, but in sensations and images. This is all so new and intense for Anouck that we take small steps. ‘As small as Beatle’s pawprints,’ I say. I ask her if she feels safe enough this time to let her body move. Through her sobbing, she nods. What begins as an almost invisible tilt of the head gradually grows into small shoulder circles. The sobbing stops, followed by a long yawn. She begins to sway her entire body from the hips. Her breathing deepens. She straightens her back, and the furrow between her brows vanishes.
She is comforting herself. My own body sways gently along, because it knows: we’ve finally found a key. When I softly bring Anouck back to the here and now, she looks at me, startled. ‘What was that?’ she asks with a wide smile, stretching both arms high above her head. She hasn’t even realized that just minutes ago, she couldn’t have done this so freely. I explain that she has found a way to create safety within her own body, and that she can always return to this safe harbor if our dialogue with her body becomes too overwhelming. ‘I don’t quite follow,’ Anouck says. I tell her she doesn’t need to ‘get it’ intellectually, but that we’re going to focus on feeling it in the coming sessions. She laughs; she knows all too well that her head sometimes gets in the way of her heart.
As we schedule the appointment for the following week, I ask if Beatle is doing okay. ‘Oh,’ Anouck says, ‘I forgot to tell you. This morning, Beatle suddenly wanted to go out. He’s been lying in the sun on the terrace all morning. Strange but true.’
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