The Map of Seven Realms
Melting Freeze at the Dawn of the Golden Age
“We are building capacity for both the health and the trauma in this work, cultivating both the presence and patience it takes to allow things to unfurl at their own pace, often without context, and the tone to meet what gets unpacked as they do. The only reason we would broach these levels in the first place is that we have enough experience that it’s possible to move through them; to develop the fluency to locate where we are on the map, in real time, and to work with each piece on the way to greater resilience.”
— The Map of Seven Realms: Melting Freeze at the Dawn of the Golden Age
The Map of Seven Realms details the default settings of the body security system, and is a foundational part of the Alchemical Alignment(TM) training program. This material has now been collected into one place for a broad range of readers——from advanced clients of somatic work, to eternally curious students of healing arts, to seasoned (yet somehow stuck) therapists who have reached a plateau in their practice. Mind, body, and spirit practitioners alike have shared the recognition that they had been missing vital parts of this map, and we are assured that there will be something in here for you as well.
Brigit Viksnins, MAT, SEP, RCST®, BCTMB created the flourishing professional training program "Alchemical Alignment, Somatic Work for Trauma Resolution and Embodiment of Spirit," which harmonizes with any mind, body, or spirit therapeutic modality using Biodynamic Craniosacral, Pre and Perinatal, shamanic, and Aikido principles, along with Somatic Experiencing-informed trauma resolution skills. For further information, please visit AlchemicalAlignment.com.
Heather de Guzman Gordon is a writer and visual artist. Limited edition books and chapbooks include: The word and no gasping; and yet, is also: a statement of poetics; Come down winter; Toward writing; Try this; Cleveland; and Limit.
Some practitioners are still working with an old framework, based on a binary swing that goes up to fight/flight and down to rest/digest. Others may recognize fight/flight and now freeze, but have not learned about the five depths as described here for the first time. Still others might have focused on trauma for so long that they've forgotten, or have never imagined, the value of growing their map of health to be larger than their map of trauma. (As one therapist stated: "I was trained to play in the toilet.") Those already practicing with a map of health may be missing an essential aspect, like regulated sympathetic (or healthy fast), which remains in a blind spot for many healers. What's more, the text includes the road into and out of hot and cold double binds, which have death wrapped inside. We have not heard these described elsewhere.
“Consistently we get to say, ‘Yes, it's terrible. I'm sorry and congratulations. On the one hand it's terrible and on the other hand you're coming back to life.’ And when we stabilize, and gather resource, with no new injuries, over and over again, that is actually the path into all of the power and vitality that is waiting for us in what can be, instead of back in what has been, with the suffering that has been frozen in stasis. So while some thawing will likely need to be met at each of these thresholds, it is our experience that while we have any life in the body, and the availability of tides to wash through, there is a possibility of pretty much anything coming back toward more energy, more alignment with blueprint, more potency, more potential.”
— The Map of Seven Realms: Melting Freeze at the Dawn of the Golden Age
What People are Saying:
"Brigit and Heather depict a brilliantly profound map of human states of experience that has greatly deepened my professional practice in the healing arts as well as my personal relationships. The Map of 7 Realms is an incredible tool of understanding, reflection and transformation that offers wise new paths for the renewal of human culture and the realities we co-create with one another. This book offers a practical song of earth evolution and an invitation to a world of healthy humans who are skilled at dealing with the challenges we face together."
- Joseph Ulysse Saine, LMT, RCST®
”I can honestly say that the material shared in this book, which is part of a larger Alchemical Alignment training, has provided me with some of the most advanced and relevant Trauma Informed Practitioner skills I have ever come across in my 30+ years of private practice as a health care provider & bodyworker. I have had the absolute pleasure of learning and embodying the theory and maps, which has been seamlessly woven into the foundation of my professional work, as well as been an integral part of my personal growth. I’m happy to celebrate the birth of this phenomenal book, at this most important time in humanity, in this year of the Dragon.”
- Kimberly Clark, OTR/L, RCST®, Developmental Reflex Specialist and Instructor
“The Map of Seven Realms helped me acknowledge, embrace, and slowly melt aspects of myself that I once thought were personality flaws. Discovering how my physiology serves to protect me gave me a newfound respect for the ancient wisdom of my body and nature, and led me to a deeper exploration and healing of trauma, meeting it where it is in the body.”
- Rasa Ghaffarian, PhD
"It's such an amazing perspective to be able to envision where I and my clients are on the Map, whether in ROR, hyper or hypo. The book helps so much with understanding these concepts, and my favorite part is the beautiful descriptions of all 5 of the freeze layers.”
- Elissa Webber, LMT, Alchemical Alignment Practitioner since 2016
”The Seven Realms book explores the experience of health in one's body and nervous system while noticing possible expressions of hyper and hypo states. Orienting from health and further resourced by viewpoints from multiple modalities, the book deepens into the Seven Realms map of the nervous system and brings new awareness into the experience of being a human. In reading it, it felt like a walk through my body, listening with fresh perspective and mapping of my own life experience.”
- KP, LMT, RYT