Hakim Archuletta

Hakim Archuletta: Trauma and Healing
(Farahs notes, thank you!)

- Try to grow your own food, even if this is growing something small in a plant pot

- There is nothing in traditional medicine which encourages drinking eight glasses of water a day. This is a myth, initiated by the companies who sell bottled water.

- The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam, would chug on milk, but only sip water - three sips. Most food has enough water in it.

- The secret of good health is to drink little and eat little.

- Milk is warm and moist, the body is warm and moist, life has the quality of being warm and moist. Things which are sour are cold, such as lemon. The less processed food you eat, the better.

- Milk, honey, salt, olive oil, vinegar : these were some of the favourite foods of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam. These can be used as medicine. There is one Doctor in Pakistan who only uses these five foods, in different amounts, as medicine for his patients.

- When people flee from fear, they are really fleeing from life. One has to face one fears as they are a part of life.

- Trauma means wound- ‘post traumatic stress.’ Trauma as a psychological problem was introduced 34 years ago, emotional trauma is a wound that hasn’t healed. A lot of trauma therapy comes from the observation of animals and looking to see how they release trauma.

- Emotion is based on a charge in the nervous system and a release. If we get many charges but no release then the system begins to shut down.

- With drugs, anything that stimulates the body will also begin to depress it at some point to balance out. Stimulants can become depressants. When some people take stimulants they get tired. The secondary action of each drug is the inverse of the primary. So, even with sleeping tablets, after a while they will stop working.

- The more you breathe, the more you will feel. So when that happens with pain - for example, children watching their parents fight - the child will live in that space of that split forever. If parents are close, then the parents will live in that world, in the space between the two. The child will feel it, even if they don’t see the fighting. The sensitivity of the body is greater than the mind.

- We have all these healthy beings inside of us and we use all of them. We all have our different ‘selves’ inside of us. Me when I was a baby, me when I was 13, me in my 20’s and me as an old person - all of these live on inside of us and we should use each of them. Rather than turning 40 and acting like a grumpy old man (or woman) all the time.

- What happens to us is traumatic and things that don’t happen to us can also be traumatic.

-We discharge through grounding. We have our fard salaat, but Allah also gave us the option of nawafil so that we could be grounded, whenever we need it. We also discharge through other people.

- Most of us have had trauma - but we’re supposed to purify ourselves from it. In modern times we’re told not to care, or become disconnected. We learn to manage ways of shutting down and not have sensitivities. We have shut down, little by little.

- The experiences that are traumatic are recorded in the nervous system.

- Anger is an emotion. We don’t ‘think’ anger, we feel anger. Emotions are felt. If you over look this, this is a serious overlooking. We feel emotions with our body, sensations are the seat for our emotions.

- Anger will be felt in the chest, neck or arms. The lack of feeling in the arms when angry, can be an attitude of defeat by those who have been traumatised. Or, in your arms you might have feelings that you have not acted upon - the inclination to hit or strike. We have been commanded to control our anger.

- If you try and remember the last time you were angry - the feeling of anger will come back. This is trauma, the memory that your body has stored.

- Emotional difficulties can be physically disabling. Impulses are a step towards action. An example is a person who twitches their leg constantly. This can show that at some time in the past they had the impulse to run or kick, but this impulse was never carried out and so they have that charge within them. This charge needs to be released.

- Another example is found in the polar bear. When hunters shoot the bear to put it to sleep, they will put it in a large area while they wait for it to wake up. The reason for this is that when the bear wakes up it will want to do those actions (to carry out its impulse) that it was doing right before it fell asleep. So, most bears will wake up and immediately start running in that space and the hunters have to allow the bear to do this otherwise the bear will die.

- So, we can see that the impulse which is not acted upon or the action which isn’t completed can be very dangerous. So the shaking leg, at one point wanted to carry out its impulse to run or kick. One of the things we see in children is that they easily carry out their impulses; children will kick or bite.

- The more loving contact we have with our children, the more connected we feel and the more the parent can say ‘This is the line that you cannot cross.’

- Wisdom never goes out of fashion.

- If anger is held inside it creates sickness, in the arms or stomach.

- One should stimulate the body by patting it all over, this is better than coffee. (See Hakim’s website for details of this exercise).

- Trauma becomes a charge until it reaches a point of inability to be contained. To do the action - to hit - does not resolve it.

- Trauma must be released from a deeper level.

- Anger can have a very extreme effect; it always has a physical effect. Children will always bite.

- We have lost the connection with the earth, sky, animals and each other which stops us from healing.

- Our situations and lifestyles has disabled the ability to deal with trauma.

-The number of suicides by the soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War, after they came back, is greater than the number who died in battle. Humans have become more disconnected, so these days it is easier for people to just kill other people and become disconnected from it.

- The most traumatic man that Hakim helped was a young Egyptian man who had been present when the attack on the twin towers in New York occurred. The reason for this was because that day when the towers fell, his whole image of generous, loving Muslims in a Universal Brotherhood also fell and thus his whole world broke down.

- In the US, almost 50% of women who are raped, are raped again. Why is this? Sometimes a pattern of behaviour can develop, even if the person doesn’t mean to be like that. An example is found in women who go from one relationship to another where they are abused.

- Hakim said there is a certain profile which really troubles him. This profile is of a woman, from 25-30 years in age, unmarried, abused as a child - she is unable to have a decent relationship, hypersensitive (in terms of probably has a lot of allergies) and generally lives a very unfulfilled life. Hakim has tried psychotherapy, Sufism etc. with these people - but it doesn’t work.

- When a person has suffered from abuse, for example from violence, they will have that violence inside of them. This is either through acting it out themselves or through having violence done upon them (pattern of behaviour).

- Energy goes inwards and turns bad. If we look at Israel, some people say that these people are repeating what was originally done to them (the Holocaust), where the oppressed becomes the oppressor.

- Men are violent when they lose touch with themselves (become disconnected).

- You may have heard of the hadith, to the effect, where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam talked about a village where there was much sin taking place but there was one pious worshipper. Allah told the angels to go and destroy the village and the angels said, ‘But there is one pious worshipper in that village’ and Allah told the angels to do him first. The reason for this is that what good is any good, if you keep it to yourself? (Here Hakim was talking about how he thinks its important to help other people to heal).

- We all know the role of the ‘perpetrator’ and the ‘victim.’ We have all had those roles where we have been either of the two, we have been both. We should all also know the rescuer.

- Men enact violence on women all the time. Allah says in the Qur’an, to the effect, ‘Do not withhold on your women.’ But when men don’t give their wife their rights, or they stop talking to them and don't give them the emotional and intimate support they need - that is withholding and that is a covert abuse.

- Disconnection is part of our age. We watch reality TV instead of living reality. We have virtual experiences rather than experiences.

- The more we can feel, the more we can breathe, the more we can connect - the better. Invite people and eat together, with family, talk together. There seems to be more honest friendships and connection in the UK than the USA.

- We only know who we are, by each other.

- Most disconnection that people have comes from disconnection from mother. The breast and that close connection at birth is very important. The most traumatic thing that can happen to someone is for them to lose their mother, especially at a young age.

- Touch can be a big healing for severely traumatised people.

- Hakim gave some examples if trauma,. One man, who was a doctor himself, came to Hakim and said he had had a pain in his chest and back for 10 years but nothing was working. After many sessions, Hakim was talking to him about the nature of the pain and Hakim asked him to describe the pain. The man described it as a triangle shape, more, sharper, pain at the front and less pain in his back. Hakim asked the man to describe the shape. The man replied, ‘Like a knife’ and at this point he burst out crying, weeping and said ‘10 years ago, my wife cheated on me and it felt like a knife going through my chest.’ Hakim said this was an example of trauma which he had failed to address and heal properly at the time and thus it had turned into a physical illness.

Hakim also explained the type of therapy he uses - somatic therapy. He said that one day he was thinking about those people that he could just not help. Those mentioned above, in the profile of the woman in her mid 20’s. Hakim was praying very hard, asking Allah to show him a way in which he could help to heal them through Allah’s Grace and somehow he heard of a somatic therapy class. So he went to the class and one day as he sat there, he looked out of the window and saw a tree. After a while he realised he recognised this place and suddenly he experienced a lot of pain in his head. Subhan Allah. He realised that outside, on that very spot he was looking at, 30 years previously he had been beaten up with a metal bar in the head and left to die in that place. The pain was from the trauma of that event which he had failed to heal properly and now it was coming back with the memory. He thought to himself, subhan Allah, I’ve come here to help others to heal and Allah has showed me that I too, need healing.

Hakim said that thikr, if done properly and better if in a group, can be a great way of release of charge. He said it is all about feeling more grounded on Allah's earth so that we are able to take what is thrown at us better and deal with it. He said all of the above healing and therapy helps a person to move on in their life and in their path to Allah, in that healing trauma can allow us to move on and it helps us to move closer to Allah by developing trust in Him and being content with His Decree.

Here are some links to some exercises that Hakim recommends: http://www.hakimarchuletta.com/exercises.html
http://www.hakimarchuletta.com/exercises.html

These are books which he recommended in the talk:

http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Tiger-Transform-Overwhelming-Experiences/dp/155643233X
http://www.amazon.com/Touching-Human-Significance-Ashley-Montagu/dp/0060960280/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-9163496-5730019?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194123908&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Continuum-Concept-Arkana-Jean-Liedloff/dp/014019245X