transforming traumas into mimic and vocal pattern

7/31/2019 Transforming Traumas into Mimic and Vocal Pattern

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Transforming Traumas

into Mimic and Vocal Paern

Danko Lara Radić

We live in a modern, “polite” society, in which from early childhood many people are suppressed in expressing their natural emoons

for the sake of “peace & quiet”. Many conict situaons in everyday life are not properly resolved as people don’t react to traumas in

a natural way anymore. How many mes have you been very angry, but stayed silent? How many mes you have been sad, but went

along with friends for fun? Every me this happens, when an emoon is not immediately processed and expressed, that unprocessed

experience is then stored somewhere within the body for future processing, usually in the form of an energy blockage. During Thai

massage treatment, therapist is acvang those stored experiences and the client faces them again as sensaons of physical pain,

anger, sadness, rage, happiness, tears, laughter, joy, etc. But sll, driven by arcial codes of behavior, most of the people again try to

stay quiet and endure the sensaon and suppress the expression of emoon, not knowing that sensaons should be expressed and

in that way traumac experiences can be nally transformed and easily released. This arcle will give you an insight into the way how

to explain to your client what is happening, what he/she is experiencing throughout the treatment and how he/she can resolve the

emoonal traumas with your help.

TRAUMA

Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumac event. A traumacevent involves a single experience, or an enduring or recurring event or events, that completely overwhelmthe individual’s ability to cope with or integrate the ideas and emoons involved with that experience. Thesense of being overwhelmed can be delayed by weeks, years or even decades, as the person struggles to copewith the immediate circumstances. Psychological trauma can lead to serious long-term negave consequencesTraumas can be caused by a transgression of person’s familiar ideas about the world and violaon of his/herhuman rights, pung him/her in a state of extreme confusion and insecurity, subject to exploitaon, sexualabuse, bullying, violence, indoctrinaon, natural disasters, war, falling vicm of alcoholism, long-term exposureto situaons such as extreme poverty, or milder forms of abuse, such as verbal abuse, including threats of any

of these, or witnessing any of these, parcularly in childhood . Traumas can range from a very light one to thefatal one.

Triggers and cues act as reminders of the trauma, and can cause anxiety, rage, sadness and other associatedemoons. Oen a person can be completely unaware of what these triggers are. Consequently, intense feelingsof anger may surface frequently, upseng memories such as images, thoughts, or ashbacks, dissociaon, loss

of self-esteem, and frequently depression.

EMOTIONS

Emoons are intricate bio-behavioural energec systems which have developed as a result of naturaselecon and provide an adapve advantage. They are viewed as complex systems comprised of expressive,cognive, physiological and experienal components. They are necessary to human funconing, assisng in

the organizaon and direcon of intrapersonal and interpersonal funcons. Emoon funcons not only on theindividual experiencing the emoon, but also has impact on the behaviour of others in the environment.

The ability to successfully produce, idenfy and interpret expressions of emoons is crucial for socialfunconing. Whenever a person has weak emoonal intelligence, he/she risks to develop a psycho-emoonaldisorders or to be put in discrete isolaon by the community, which in turn can damage his/her nature as asocial being.

In general, researchers tend to idenfy six “basic” emoons: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and

disgust. However, there are numerous other emoons, which are a combinaon of these basic ones, more subtle

and complex, which cannot be easily and clearly disnguished and idened (such as love, hatred, empathy,

contempt, envy, pride, fascinaon, boredom, jealousy, enthusiasm, indierence, etc.).



WHERE ARE THE EMOTIONS STORED?

During the traumac event, when the brain is overloaded with stress and trauma to the extent that it cannot

immediately process it at the conscious level, in order to avoid the collapse, it stores the traumac emoon in

the unconscious body. Physical manifestaons of the unconscious body are the muscle and fascia ssue and

internal organs. The “stuck and unprocessed” memories create imbalance and blockage in the energy matrix

throughout the energy body, which is reected in acute sness, cramps, sluggishness or other symptoms at

the level of the physical body. Longterm traumas usually create chronical structural deviaons of body posture.

At the physical level, neuropepdes are the biochemical basis of emoons. All emoons seem to have their

own pepde, which generates mulple emoonal & physical levels of responses. According to the old model,

emoons reside in the limbic brain, but the new model suggests that only 2% are in the limbic brain, while 98%

are located in the neuropepdes which ow throughout the body.

Neuropepdes communicate among the nervous, immune, endocrine, muscle and skeletal systems via blood,

intersal uids, and the central nervous system, which are all body uids. Neuropepdes bind to cell receptors

and they provide the key to how the emoons are stored in the body.

Both emoons and memories are facilitated by neuropepdes binding to cells. A memory is not stored unless

it has an emoonal content. Pain is also transmied via neuropepdes. Consciousness itself is not possible

without emoons; meaning that the body is the unconscious mind. Memories, emoons and pain pathways are

all facilitated using the same mechanism in the body.

HOW ARE THE EMOTIONS EXPRESSED?

Emoons are internal subjecve energec states characterized by specic bodily expressions, which manifest

themselves in vascular reacons, changes in respiraon and circulaon, body movements and gestures,

intonaon of the voice and, perhaps most importantly, through facial expressions. People automacally and

connuously mimic and synchronize their movements with facial expressions, voices, postures, movements and

instrumental behaviours of others. One study indicated that up to 93 percent of communicaon eecveness is

determined by nonverbal cues - that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used

38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communicaon.

Changes in breathing paern and vocal frequency

Many emoons are connected with increased muscle acvity and increased voice. It explains the large role

played by emoons in respiratory movements, performing, as you know, a dual funcon:

1) improving gas exchange and provision of the necessary funcons for increased muscle oxygen

2) transmission of air through the glos and achieving the desired vibraon of the vocal cords.

Respiraon is changing when emoons change their velocity and amplitude during dierent emoonal states.

These changes are as follows:

• Pleasure – fast and shallow breathing

• Displeasure – rare and deep breathing

• Excitement – fast and deep breathing

• Stress – rare and shallow breathing



Mimic expression

There are three major roles of mimic expression: to

display the emoon of the expresser, to infect the

perceiver with the same emoon and to facilitate

emoonal contagion on interpersonal judgments

The perceiver automacally mimics the perceivedemoon in order to reach mutual synchronizaon

and to improve communicaon.

Humans have complex facial muscles that mostly

perform the funcon of facial movements in

accordance with the nature of emoonal states

Our emoons coordinate movements of the eyes

eyebrows, eyelids, lips, nose, zygomacs and chin.

HAPPINESS

Expression of happiness is generally accepted as a

signal inving the perceiver to approach or aliate

with the expresser. Characterisc expressions of

happiness consist of the following: raised inner

eyebrows, ghtened lowed eyelid, raised cheeks,

upper lip raised and lip corners turned upward.

SADNESS

Characterisc expressions of sadness consist of furrowed eyebrows, opened mouth with raised uppe

lip, lip corners stretched and turned down and chin

pulled up. These facial conguraons are believed

to elicit aenve, care-giving and non-aggressive

behaviours.

FEAR

The experience of fear is though to facilitate the

detecon of impending danger in the environment

Characterisc fear expressions consist of raisedeyebrows, wide eyes and stretched mouth. This

expression is consistent with increased aenon to

the surroundings . The percepon of fear in others has

oen been assumed to signify threat to the perceiver,

although fear expression may in fact serve as an

aliang smulus, encouraging approach rather

than avoidance in the perceiver.



ANGER

Anger is widely accepted as an approach-oriented

emoon as the experience of anger movates

the individual to approach the emoon inducing

smulus. Characterisc anger expressions consist

of the following: lowered eyebrows, wide open eyeswith ghtened lowed lid, stretched lip corners and

lips exposing teeth. Percepon of anger in others acts

as a cue to potenal danger.

SURPRISE

Surprise is a short term emoon, caused by sudden,

unexpected smuli, usually followed by other

emoons, either posive or negave, depending

on the qualies of the inial smuli. Characterisc

surprise expressions consist of raised eyebrows, wide

eyes and opened mouth.

DISGUST

This is a very primordial emoon, developed primarily

to save the human from digesng the insipid and

roen food. Later on, it has been spread onto other

phenomena in the environment. In social contacts,

it is a signal to the perceiver to get away from the

expresser. Characterisc disgust expressions consist

of lowered eyebrows, raised cheeks, ghtened lower

lid, raised upper lip and lowered jaw.



Vocal expression

Voice is created by the transmission of air through the glos and vibraon of the vocal cords. Voice is sound,

pure energy, vibraon at certain frequency. During the evoluon, from the very basic insnct vocal expression,

humans have developed speech and language as the most sophiscated communicaon tool.

Primordial, prehistoric use of the voice was characterized by its strength and ability to create noise, for the

purpose of scaring, alarming of a possible danger and communicaon on longer distance. Besides frequency,

its main aribute was energy and power. We can rarely witness this power today in everyday city life, onlyoccasionally, for instance in opera, on a concert, in a polical speech or at a football stadium. The ulmate power

of voice can be witnessed with some top Qi Gong maral arsts who are able to use their voice so as to inict

damage on internal organs of their opponents from a 5m distance.

Characterisc of the contemporary voice expression, that is, the speech, is a wide variety of dierent frequencies

and subtle nuances of tones and tempos, reecng the complex mind & emoonal condion of the contemporary

human. However, casualty of the new social environment in which more and more individuals are sharing small

habitats, as in the cies, the ability of the voice to create noise, which is a powerful tool for emoonal release

is socially suppressed.

Substute for the vocal power is found in the richness of the modern language. As the language becomes

increasingly complex, more frequencies of the voice are developed and dierent subtle emoons can be

expressed. Every word we use is coloured by an underlying emoonal message. Everything you receive “between

the lines” is emoon. Human language would be impossible unless permeated by emoons. The very same

sentence can be understood in many dierent ways depending on the way it is pronounced. The best example

is sarcasm. This is why it is very dicult for people to communicate via internet, because words on the monito

don’t have the emoonal aribute and that is why “emocons” are so frequently used.

In several studies in which voice mapping, measurements and analysis have been conducted, it was discovered

that each trauma results in certain frequencies within the voice of the subject missing. The conclusion has

been made that our enre mental and emoonal condion is represented and constantly expressed through

voice. Measurements have shown that posive emoonal states like uncondional love, self validaon, creavethinking, self acceptance and appropriate self expression, generate higher voice frequencies than negave ones

Voice frequences

Ma Kramer



Bodily expression

The body itself has numerous ways to express and release emoons and this happens both consciously and

unconsciously. Dierent paerns of body movements can be acvated, such as shivering, clenching, contracng,

scratching, jerking, jumping and other. Especially during interacon with a partner, the body connuously

communicates emoons through well known “body language”.

EMOTIONAL CONTAGION

People seem to be fully aware that conscious assessments can provide a great deal of informaon about others

It seems that they are less aware what informaon they can get by focusing on their own emoonal reacons

during social encounters. As people unconsciously and automacally mimic emoonal expressions of others

they oen come to feel pale reexions of their partners’ feelings. By aending to this stream of ny moment-to-

moment reacons, people can and do feel themselves within emoonal landscapes inhabited by their partners

Emoonal contagion is of the outmost importance in personal relaonships because it fosters behavioura

interpersonal synchrony.

People also mimic and synchronize vocal uerances. Dierent people prefer dierent interacon tempos. When

partners interact, if things are to go well, their speech cycles must become mutually entrained.

If the therapist is sensive, and in meditave state, thanks to the natural mechanism of emoonal contagion,

he can synchronize his emoonal eld with his client’s and create a unied eld, through which he can perceive,

experience and feel the emoons of the client.

HOW IS THE EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION SUPRESSED?

Expressive suppression involves deliberate eorts to control the outward expression of experienced emoon. It

involves acvely reducing or eliminang emoonally expressive behaviour. Individuals may engage in expressive

suppression for a variety of reasons, in order to mask socially inappropriate aect, avoid unwanted aenon,

aempt to se emoonal experience, etc. Furthermore, expressive suppression may be aempted in response

to both posive (happy, but have to go to the funeral) and negave (sad, but have to go to the wedding) emoons

While some amount of expressive suppression is necessary for successful social interacon, excessive reliance on

it as an emoonal regulaon strategy is related to a number of psychosomac disorders. Repeve suppression

of the emoonal expression can create serious blockages in the energy matrix and put it out of balance.

Subconsciously, we create complex and somemes mysterious mechanisms to protect us from early traumac

and stressful experiences. These mechanisms run silently below the surface of our conscious mind as coping

skills that help us endure and survive dicult events and chronically painful condions throughout our lives.

However, their repeve applicaon oen leads to thoughts, feelings and acons that create suering and rob

us of our fullest potenal in later life.

Suppression of the mimic emoonal expression

Suppression of emoonal expressions also appears to decrease emoon sensivity by interrupng facia

feedback process. An individual who intensively engages in the suppression of the mimic expression is impaired

in perceiving emoons of others, a crical ability in successful interpersonal funconing.

Automac facial mimicry in response to viewing facial expressions of emoons of others plays a catalyc role in

emoon contagion. Mimicry is though to play a crucial role in interpersonal funconing. Successfully mimicking

the expressive behaviour of interacon, partners facilitate aliaon and rapport, making the proper mimic

expression the very basic foundaon of a healthy emoonal life.



The importance of a proper mimic emoonal expression can be seen in the following study. A group of people

has been divided into three groups. Each of them had a task to accurately idenfy the emoons of the randomly

screened faces shown to them. The rst group has been instructed to suppress their own facial expression

during the task. The second group has been instructed to increase the magnitude of their own automac

facial expression. The third group was not instructed. The study showed that the rst group experienced some

impairment in emoonal percepon, together with a decrease of speed and accuracy. Both the second and the

third group ended with successful results.

Suppression of the vocal emoonal expression

The suppression of the vocal expression today starts at the very beginning of the childhood, with “Stop, don’t

cry !”. The “peace & quiet & politeness” polics is the ruler of today’s social interacons. Even in the situaons

when “quiet” reacon is the opposite of one’s aroused emoons and desired reacon, like when he/she is

exposed to abuse, bullying, violence, humiliaon or exploitaon, either in business or domesc surroundings

there is a strong pressure and expectaon by the society for the individual to overpower and “swallow” his/her

emoons. If you would always react according to what you feel, it is highly expectable that you would suer

social repercussions.

Today, a vast majority of populaon lives in crowded cies. In the cies arcial public codes are established,prohibing you to react according to your present moods and emoons, for the sake of “others”. You can not

scream in the city, if not on a concert, demonstraon or a football match. You can scream only in your bathtub,

with your head in the water. When did you scream last me? It is not very much socially acceptable any more to

go out and sing loudly in the street, to cry, or to express any other strong emoon. You can not react naturally

any more, only at places and on me predened for that purpose. But how can you predene your heart? The

logical outcome of this situaon is acve and massive emoonal suppression within populaon.

People who live in the countryside, in the nature, can freely express their emoons through voice. When you sit

down with country folk, you will noce that they all have strong healthy voices, speak clearly and loud, being al

the me unlimited in their vocal expression. If you ever try to speak with your friend from one hill to another

you will understand the power of the vocal emoonal release.



HEALING PROCESS WITH THAI MASSAGE

HOW TO ACTIVATE, TRANSFORM AND RELEASE STORED MEMORIES AND EMOTIONS THROUGH MIMIC AND

VOCAL PATTERN

Being one of the most profound and powerful healing modalies, Thai massage touches the very core of thehuman soul and emoonal body, at its deepest level. In its approach, it encompasses the physical, emoonal,

mental and spiritual level of the human being. It is a highly interacve discipline requesng full awareness both

of the giver and the receiver.

In this workshop we are stressing the role of the receiver and how he/she can contribute more eecvely to the

healing process. In the specic process of transforming and releasing stored memories and emoons, receiver’s

acts, understanding and involvement are more important than those of the giver.

It has been already explained that all suppressed and unprocessed emoons are stored in the unconscious body

as memories. They are stored all over the energec matrix, and we can feel them as “energy blockages” with the

increased or decreased energy ow. In the physical body, they are stored in the muscle-fascia ssue and internaorgans as the places where the ssue shows qualies dierent than the usual ones.

As therapists, whenever we start to work on the energy blockage, we act as a trigger, both on energec and

physical level. As the blockage is the storage of unprocessed emoon in the unconscious, by acng on the

stored emoon, we iniate and trigger its revival at the conscious level, so the receiver suddenly becomes

aware of it.

People will oen experience dierent emoons, they can see pictures, hear sounds or have ashbacks. Usually

they experience pain; but it can also be rage, anxiety, joy, sadness or other. This is the moment when the receiver

needs a deeper understanding of the process and has to take acve role in it.

Emoon is pure energy, thus indestrucble and hence it won’t disappear. Once it has been revived at the conscious

level, it can be either processed, transformed and released or put back into storage in the unconsciousness.

This is the crucial fact that a receiver has to comprehend when faced with the revived emoon.

The body itself very oen naturally jerks in aempt to release emoon, but this mostly happens at the unconscious

level. Although conscious contracons of the body can give an impression of the emoonal release, actually they

constute the opposite, the resistance of the receiver against the processing of emoonal sensaon.

At the conscious level, emoon can be expressed by breathing, mimics and voice. The emoon can be expressed

randomly, by any means, or by the specic paerns such as sobbing, crying, laughter, screaming, sighing or

grieving. The most eecve way to transform the emoonal energy the receiver is overwhelmed with is to

transform it into sound energy – vocal expression.

The eecve emoonal release depends on the receiver’s level of consciousness and comprehension. When

triggered, people who are familiar with these processes will instantly start to process the emoons through

breathing, mimic or vocal paerns. In those cases, the therapist will have a good bio-feedback and can easily

enter the eld of the receiver’s emoonal habitat and feel and idenfy the processed emoons. Experienced

therapists will usually start to mimic and express the receiver’s emoon even before he/she starts to do it.



Yet, with vast number of people, the situaon is completely dierent. People engaged in public posions, like

business, especially those involved in management, like CEOs, who are trained and accustomed to strictly contro

their emoons in everyday life, commonly face great dicules to spontaneously express their emoons.

Accustomed to keep mental control in all aspects of life, they simply cannot “let go”, they would not even

allow you to freely move their limb, without “them assisng in the control of the movement.” Other people

have had a harsh growing up, oen in abusive environment, which resulted in their introversion and midity to

express emoons in presence of others. Some people, especially males, have cultural prejudices against openly

expressing their emoons, since to them it is a sign of “weakness”. They will always say “I can endure.” But the

point is not to “endure” because then the trauma will return to unconscious level and stay stored and unresolved

For numerous causes, a lot of people face great dicules with expressing their emoons, which in turn hinders

the therapist from achieving the necessary emoonal synchronizaon throughout the healing process.

Usually, people who are not able to automacally and naturally process and express their emoons are also

completely unaware of that. The simple fact of presenng them their condion of inability to express an emoon

will make them surprised. The therapist should take me to paently and carefully explain the complete subject

to the recipient, making sure that the recipient raonally understood the enre phenomenon. Then he canask the recipient to try to perform the expression, but even then most of the people would sll be unable to

perform it. This is because they have very strong unconscious suppression mechanisms which have taken years

to develop.

What you can do is to try with a simple exercise both for the recipient and you:

1) Act on the energec blockage with the emoonal storage

2) When the recipient becomes aware of the sensaon at the conscious level, ask him/her to pronounce a

long, steady “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” for a few minutes, while you connue to

smulate the energy blockage

3) Both of you focus on the changes in the frequency, tone and strength of the voice during the transformaon

of the emoon into it.

This exercise will help the recipient become aware of the connecon of the emoon with the voice and the

immediate ease he/she will experience when transforming the energy of the emoon into the energy of sound

The therapist will experience instant acve feedback to his acon, which will help him to adjust and synchronize

his and the recipient’s emoonal elds.

The triggering of the stored emoonal memory is mostly done through pressure or stretching at the physical

level and through emission of bio-energy at the energec level. The strength of the physical pressure varies

from a very light touch to very strong, deep pressure which depends on each parcular situaon. The physicapressure is always intertwined with its counterpart, the bio-energy intervenon.

When the process of emoonal transformaon is fully acve and successful, the more complex emoons can

come up to the surface of the conscious mind, iniang the more complex expressions. The emoons can come

up in waves, with ups and downs. A sensaon of pain can quickly switch to a sensaon of joy, for example, and

it would’t be unusual for a person in the midst of grieving to burst into laughter. Likewise, anger can be easily

replaced by sorrow and then back again to anger and so on...



0

“Molecules of Emotion ”

Candace B. Pert, Ph.D.

“Emotional Contagion” Elaine Hatfeld, John T. Cacioppo, Richard

L. Rapson

“Voice Mapping”

Matt Kramer

“Expressive Control and Emotion

Perception:

The impact of expressive suppression

and mimicry on sensitivity to facial

expressions of emotion “

Kristin Grace Schneider

“Mimicry and the Judgment of the

Emotional Facial Expression”

Sylvie Blairy, Pedro Herrera, Ursula Hess

“The Body Reveals - An Illustrated Guide

to the Psychology of the Body”

Ron Kurtz and Hector Prestera

Wikipedia

transforming traumas into mimic and vocal pattern

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