Tagged With "New York Times Help Desk section"
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1000 TELLINGS!
I just had to cradle a bundle of books when my publisher showed me the first 1000 copies that arrived from the printer. A thousand copies! At this very moment the most important thing is they exist. Not if or when they’ll be purchased. Not who will get a copy or what they’ll think of it as they read it. What’s happening is I am telling. A thousand times over, I am telling. A lot of people already know that after every rape my father said, “You tell anyone and I’ll kill you.” And I’ve worked...
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A New Documentary About Breaking the Cycle of Trauma is Launching This Fall!
We are thrilled to announce the premiere of Wrestling Ghosts , a documentary about breaking the cycle of trauma, at the LA Film festival on Sept. 27th. “Incredible. Haunting and strange and beautiful and incredibly moving.” -Dan Cogan, Founder Impact Partners Wrestling Ghosts follows the epic inner journey of Kim, a young mother who, over two heartbreaking and inspiring years, battles the traumas from her past in order to create a new present and future for her and her family. In this...
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A New Word to Help Children and Adults with High ACEs: Lasticity
We can talk about grit, resilience and mindsets all we want. These approaches, while useful in a limited way, operate off a deficit model. There is something wrong in individuals that needs to be fixed -- repaired. And, there is a built in assumption that those who have high ACEs can return to the status quo ante -- they can bounce back. But, these are flawed arguments and here's why. Those with high ACEs are forever changed; they cannot bounce back. (There are neurological reasons among...
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A New Year's Thoughts
Wishing you a Happy New Year of Peace, Joy, Love, Hope & Healing. Take care, Michael. "JOY" - a song of thanks to all of those in my life - performed at the NYAPRS Conference 9/13 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4tWjowZVo “JOY”© Michael Skinner Music There’s joy in knowing what I have found There’s joy in knowing that I’m still around There’s joy in knowing that I still care Joy in knowing you’re still there Joy in knowing you’re still there I’m so glad you’re still around Thanks for...
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A Survivor on Speaking Out Against Shame, Silence, and Sexual Assault (yesmagazine.org)
If you’re a survivor yourself and reading this, you know that when I write “I had finished being shocked and upset long ago,” I don’t mean it’s done and dusted and put away and now I’m finished with the rape. I remember a male friend to whom I talked less than a year after it happened. “Do you think I’m thinking about it for too long?” I wanted to know. “I still feel scared and upset; do you think I’m making too big a deal out of it?” “Yes,” he said, “you are. You should be over it by now.”...
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A Yoga Practice for Healing Emotional Trauma (dvd) 1 hour 6 minutes (with instructions)
This follow-along chakra-based yoga practice is designed for healing, both mental and physical, from the aftermath of emotional trauma. This one-hour practice can easily be divided into two separate, shorter practices. The first half is more physical and the second half is more meditative. Beginning with an introduction that provides a healing perspective, the video then moves into a yoga practice where you join a class that includes poses, affirmations and breathing practices. Section 1: "I...
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ACEs Validated My Teaching Experience
When I first heard about the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , it felt like a light bulb had actually gone on. Finally, FINALLY, someone was validating what I saw every single day teaching in East Oakland. For eight years, I taught at an elementary school in the most violent part of Oakland , the part that the police called the “Killing Zone.” The kids in my class had seen friends, neighbors, and family members shot or stabbed, and routinely hid in bathrooms and closets when gang fights...
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Adversity Needn’t Thwart or Define You. Here’s How to Cope. [nytimes.com]
The author had a chipped tooth. It ruined her looks, she thought. She had to interview someone for her book, and she really wanted to cancel. The interview subject was Mariatu Kamara, the young woman from Sierra Leone who wrote “The Bite of the Mango,” a memoir about surviving a civil war, rape, losing the baby that resulted from the rape, having her hands chopped off, making it to safety and finally leaving everyone she knew to seek refuge in Canada. The author thought about this, about why...
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Alice Miller's For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence
In Alice Miller’s classic book For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, Miller hammers home her provocative stance that the root causes of ALL violence are a consequence of childhood trauma.
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Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment
ENDING AN EPIDEMIC OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA REQUIRES COURAGE, COMPASSION AND A PLAN. ANNA, AGE EIGHT PROVIDES THE SOLUTION. NEW BOOK ANNA AGE EIGHT: THE DATA-DRIVEN PREVENTION OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MALTREATMENT By Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello If one in eight children suffered from an unknown but debilitating virus, outrage would boil, editorials would harangue public officials, and agencies would mobilize to counter the threat. The CDC would scramble resources to develop...
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Author Hopes to Put Her Emotions Journals in the Hands of Girls in Every State
Back in the spring, I was in the middle of putting together a panel on community interventions for ACEs when the conference planning chair suggested adding Tara Shephard. We had an amazing panel that day, but Tara hit it out of the park. Her love and care for African-American girls in Arkansas and the adversities they face was apparent in every word she spoke that day. To give some background, Tara is an author, education and mental health advocate; an auditor for the American Correctional...
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Awakening Compassion at Work (dailygood.org)
Jane Dutton's research focuses on how organizational conditions strengthen capabilities of individuals and firms. She is a co-founder of the Center for Positive Organizations . Monica Worline's research is dedicated to the mission of enlivening work and workplaces is a founding member of CompassionLab, and a collaborating scientist at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University. JD: Some managers in some organizations don't see compassion as part of...
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Babies and Toddlers Risk Emotional Damage and Post-Trauma Stress in Toxic Homes
Saving your children, family and loved ones from inter-generational post-traumatic stress... Following is an excerpt from my latest book, My Journey of Healing in Life After Trauma, Part 2. "Extensive research has shown babies will pick up on toxic circumstances and behaviors and demonstrate post trauma stress symptoms as they become older. The goal of My Journey of Healing, Part 2 is to specifically help parents with stress triggers to save their kids from becoming emotionally damaged...
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“BECOMING MS. BURTON: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women” by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn
I met Susan Burton in 2010, but I had learned her name years before. I was doing research about the challenges of re-entry for people incarcerated due to our nation's cruel and biased drug war. At the time, I was in the process of writing The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness - a book that aimed to expose the ways the War on Drugs had not only decimated impoverished communities of color but had also helped to birth a new system of racial and social control eerily...
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Behind Bars, Mentally Ill Inmates Are Often Punished For Their Symptoms (npr.org)
By some accounts, nearly half of America's incarcerated population is mentally ill — and journalist Alisa Roth argues that most aren't getting the treatment they need. Roth has visited jails in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta and a rural women's prison in Oklahoma to assess the condition of mentally ill prisoners. She says correctional officers are on the "front lines" of mental health treatment — despite the fact that they lack clinical training. "Most of [the correctional...
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Best Selling Memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” tells an inspiring story of overcoming ACEs
In search of insight into the country’s stark cultural divides in preparation for a week of potentially difficult conversations in Kentucky where I’d be attending family reunion and 50-year high school reunion, I dove into “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance . Throughout this mesmerizing, painful, and hilarious memoir, I kept wondering if the author might know about the ACE study. The answer was found on page 226 when “ACEs” jumps out at me and...
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Beyond Silence Speaks up for Mental Health (29 minutes documentary - National Council of Behavioral Health)
The National Council, in partnership with the Be Vocal: Speak Up for Mental Health initiative recently released Beyond Silence, a new Be Vocal documentary. The film follows three people who share one common experience—their lives have been transformed by speaking up and breaking through the silence often associated with mental illness. Watch the film and find more information, tools and online resources for #BeVocalSpeakUp here . About the Documentary Meet Jeff, Lauren and Lloyd, three...
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Beyond the Crack Generation, Author K-Rahn Vallatine
Beyond The Crack Generation takes readers on an autobiographical journey to explain how dysfunctional, counterproductive behavior became a cultural norm in the quest for prosperity and survival among youth. Addressing the pervasive and lingering impact that the crack cocaine epidemic had on mainstream Hip Hop culture and Urban America as a whole, it answers the echoing question: How did our young people lose their way? It offers a glimpse in the psychology of a young man in search of...
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BLACK QUEENS Colouring Book by Danielle Murrell Cox
The BLACK QUEENS colouring book is filled with images of powerful women/girls and great quotes, that will help uplift your spirit any day. This book is great for people of all ages. It's got affirmations, encouraging quotations, and of course, ample room to color and draw. To read more and purchase Black Queens, visit: http://dmcmtl.com/product/black-queens-colouring-book/
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Books by Category
The following books have been recommended by ACEs Connection members. Categories (see below) Brain and Neurology Child Abuse Child and Human Development Children’s Books Depression Domestic Violence Foster Care Grief Law Enforcement and...
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Book Review: The Stress-Proof Brain [PsychCentral.com]
Who wouldn’t love a stress proof brain? The title of this book, The Stress-Proof Brain, is enough to intrigue anyone going through a stressful time. Melanie Greenberg provides background on how our brains respond to stress and how that response is what determines how we feel. Depending on the situation, our amygdala releases hormones and neurotransmitters that prepare people to either fight or flee. In the short-term, this can be a good thing; it can energize people and help overcome...
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"Breaking the Silence" Warriors of HOPE Series Concludes This Sunday with a 2-Hour LIVE Worldwide Webcast Event!
The “Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams” radio program will be featuring a SPECIAL LIVE 2-HOUR WORLDWIDE WEBCAST this Sunday evening, May 10 th from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM Central Time. This event will be a special conclusion to their WARRIORS OF HOPE series featuring all the guest from the entire series together for one life-changing webcast. The guests are some of the most sought after authors, experts and speakers on the various topics of trauma, abuse, and resilience in the...
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Broadcast Premier of 'Broken Places' on PBS [pbs.org]
From Public Broadcasting Service, March 3, 2020 Peabody Award-winning and two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Roger Weisberg teams up with WNET’s Chasing the Dream public media initiative on his 33rd national public television documentary Broken Places, premiering on April 6 at 10 PM on PBS (check local listings). WNET is presenting Producer/Director Roger Weisberg’s 33rd national public television documentary, Broken Places on April 6th. This poignant production represents the...
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Broken Places after Screening Summary & Resources
Almost 2,500 ACEs Connection members signed up to watch the Broken Places documentary online on March 21st, which was made available for Vimeo streaming all day. We are grateful to KPJR Films for sharing this documentary and helping make this event happen (special thanks for the hard work of @lynn waymer, Keely Badger, @Gail Kennedy, and @Carey Sipp. Following the event, we had a one hour chat with featured guests and many of you have asked...
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Building a Collection of Books for Children, Teens and Adults
The Drug Endangered Children’s Initiative is grateful to our community partners who shared their favorite book titles with us, especially Joanne Peterson from Learn to Cope and Gina Williams from East Bridgewater Public Schools for these suggestions. We look forward to discovering and sharing more resources in the new year, please comment with your favorites.
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Building Resilience to Trauma: The Trauma and Community Resiliency Models by Elaine Miller-Karas
From the book's page on Amazon : Description After a traumatic experience, survivors often experience a cascade of physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual responses that leave them feeling unbalanced and threatened. Building Resilience to Trauma explains these common responses from a biological perspective, reframing the human experience from one of shame and pathology to one of hope and biology. It also presents alternative approaches, the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) and...
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Check out 11-yr-old Aslan Tudor’s Standing Rock book: 'Young Water Protectors' (Indian Country Today)
Aslan Tudor, who first traveled with his mom Kelly Tudor to Standing Rock when he was just eight-years-old, has written a book about his experience in a book titled “Young Water Protectors: A Story about Standing Rock.” “I thought it would be a good book to hear about kids in Standing Rock,” said Aslan, who traveled to Standing Rock when he was eight in August of 2016, and had turned 9 by the time he returned in October. Aslan’s mother Kelly Tudor, who helped Aslan write the book, and who...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Child of Holocaust Survivor Explores Generational Trauma
In her recently published book, Survivor Café , Elizabeth Rosner brings a deeper meaning to genocide, an experience she has been trying to process as a writer and the daughter of Holocaust survivors. In her first work of nonfiction, she explores the common threads that tie all survivors of mass trauma – from Armenia to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bosnia – but always returns to Buchenwald, the concentration camp where her father, a young teenager, was imprisoned during the last year of WWII. She...
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Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal
What is soon to become one of the go-to resources for ACEs related books by Donna Jackson Nakazawa. July 7th, that the date the book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa is on...
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Children, Race, and Power: The Book That Continues to Read
I recently read Markowitz and Rosner’s Children, Race, and Power . This book is a recount of Dr.’s Kenneth and Mamie Clark Northside Center in Harlem in the late 1940’s. Their journey while valiant was met with much heartbreak. Fast forward 70 years and it doesn’t appear that much has changed. Dollars continue to be wasted, and the contentment with the status quo and lack of outcomes seems a close resemblance to today. We can say we have the best intentions and well-meaning hearts, but...
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Daily Meditations for Calming Your Angry Mind [PsychCentral.com]
This is, put simply, one of the best books on mindfulness that I have read. In Daily Meditations for Calming Your Angry Mind: Mindfulness Practices to Free Yourself from Anger, Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstine provide about forty mindfulness exercises to help people focus on their special need or challenge regarding anger. They help us use various meditations to move past anger and instead respond to things that upset us with calm and kindness. Brantley and...
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Director's Note about tonight's PBS broadcast of Broken Places (4//6)
The film trailer is available here. Learn more about Broken Places via this review written by @Laurie Udesky (ACEs Connection Staff) entitled, Documentary Broken Places uses archival footage to tell stories of ACEs and resilience over time . Tonight's Airing: Check your local listing time here. Film clips and more viewer information can be found on the PBS website .
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"Don't Try This Alone" on Amazon
Don't Try This Alone: The Silent Epidemic of Attachment Disorder" on Amazon 2-28-18; Kindle out soon... http://www.amazon.com/dp/1976120128 Thank you to my ACEsConnection community for all your support for the last five years during the daunting experience of documenting this story... Kathy was an overachiever—an economist, technical writer, and classical singer married 27 years to her college sweetheart. It looked like Kathy was fine. But deep within her hid a pain from infancy so severe...
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Dorothy and Steven Halley will this week's Special Guests on "Breaking the Silence" Radio Show
This Sunday evening's "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" special guests will be Dorothy and Steven Halley from 8:00 to 9:00 PM CST. Their over 25 years of professional life together will be discussed including the River of Cruelty model explaining how cruelty is passed from person to person and generation to generation. This model helps expand the Adverse Childhood Experiences conversation. Many other topics including their work with domestic violence and helping bring...
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Dr. Anthony Biglan- The Nurture Effect and recent post
Hi there everyone- please check out Dr. Biglan's book The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World. Very practical! As well Dr. Biglan offered the following blog post recently that regardless of your political orientation I hope that you will be able to find value in the core message. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/an-evidence-based-strategy-for-bringing-everyone-together_us_587bad19e4b03e071c14fdf7 Additionally if you haven't had the...
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Dr. Claudia Gold: Empathy & Listening as ACE-Informed Practice
"You are absolutely not doomed from having ACEs."
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Dr. Felitti Describes Future of ACE on TV Show with Dr. Alman
Scared? Since childhood, S. T. has been anxious & scared of dying. He learned helplessness from his mother. He learned self-punishment from his father. From the outside, he lived a successful life; good job, married & kids. Inside he was divided between constant self-doubt & an ongoing secret life of escaping into porn. He spent decades like this. One day he decided to get help. He started by talking to someone he trusted at church. He got referred to me. Not surprisingly, it can...
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Dr. Gabor Mate speaking at ACEs to Assets in Scotland June 11, 2019 (https://www.youtube.com)
The latest gift from @ACEAwareNation #ACEsToAssets conference. @DrGaborMate talking about self-regulation, self-acceptance, self-healing, forgiveness, my favourite #AliceMiller, and good ways to intervene for child welfare. Gems of wisdom. So thankful for the access generously provided for those of us unable to attend in person.
My biggest take aways: encouragement to "Keep doing what you're doing..." and validation that historical "evil is an emanation of the traumatized human unconscious."
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Emotional Agility as a Tool to Help Teens Manage Their Feelings (ww2.kqed.org)
“Emotions are absolutely fundamental to our long-term success – our grit, our ability to self-regulate, to negotiate conflict and to solve problems. They influence our relationships and our ability to be effective in our jobs,” said David, author of the book “ Emotional Agility ” and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. “Children who grow up into adults who are not able to navigate emotions effectively will be at a major disadvantage. ” Research out of Stanford University found that...
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Emotional First-Aid for Children: Compassion in Action: How to Quickly Help in Times of Trouble
In Compassion in Action, Emotional First Aid for Kids , you will learn valuable techniques to help children successfully move through upset and trauma. You’ll find self-regulation and recovery techniques to help yourself, so you can help others more effectively. These practical tools support parents, caregivers, teachers and community members who want to protect children. The strategies are easy to learn, apply and remember, for both every day use, and in times of trouble. In Emotional...
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Eyes Are Never Quiet
From our recent book: Eyes are Never Discipline is not something we do to children. It is something we help them to build from within. Far too often school district discipline policies and procedures equate discipline with forms of punishment. For many schools, the code of conduct is made of long lists of possible behavioral infractions and the associated consequences (i.e., punishments). To properly engage with this debate, an overview of terminology is needed. “Discipline,” on the one...
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Fathers’ Day in America [Message by The Rev. Patricia Templeton]
I recently finished a haunting novel, Before We Were Yours , in which Lisa Wingate tells a fictionalized account of the true story of one of this country’s great scandals, the Tennessee Children’s Home Society and its director, Georgia Tann. From the 1920s through 1950, Tann and her organization facilitated the adoption of thousands of children across the country. Tann was a prominent member of society, held up as the “Mother of Modern Adoption,” and consulted by Eleanor Roosevelt on issues...
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Finding My Way Back
Have you ever felt you have painted yourself into a corner? Better stated perhaps, find yourself standing in the crosshairs of your own truth. Well, that’s me and here we are. In the last year, I have been going through a rebranding process, still the same heart, still the same mission, but a tweak to messaging and language so it was clear what the work was ultimately about. Simultaneously, I have been stewarding the completion of my book, my own story. Now, here I sit ready to pull the...
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Focusing, by Eugene T. Gendlin, PH.D.
I first heard about Eugene Gendlin while reading Peter Levine's Waking the Tiger . Gendlin, a psychologist, originated the term "felt sense," which refers to the awareness of our internal, bodily experiences. Like Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, and other somatic pioneers, Gendlin promotes emotional self healing by learning to listen to your body in an accepting way. As Gendlin writes: "You have a bodily orienting sense. You know who you are and how you came to be in this room, reading this...
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Free "Managing Holiday Stress E-Book" from "Breaking the Silence" Radio Program
Last week's "Hope for the Holidays" LIVE video event was a tremendous success. The hour long program can still be watched on the shatteredbythedarkness.com website. During the program it was mentioned that a FREE PDF would be offered to those listening. This free "Managing Holiday Stress E-Book" can emailed to you if you simply request it by emailing Dr. Gregory Williams at gawilli1@texaschildrens.org "Breaking the Silence with Dr. Gregory Williams" radio program can be heard every Sunday...
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Healing ACE's
Healing Childhood Trauma I’d like to thank each member of ACE’s Connection for all your work helping and supporting children through various activities and organizations. You are clearly a collection of people who care about the children of the world. It is in recognition of these efforts that I ask you to consider two books on healing childhood trauma. They represent a life-time partnership dedicated to raising and educating healthy children. Secondly, I’d like to ask you for a word of...
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Healing Developmental Trauma
Last week I posted an article about the Harvard study on happiness, which found that strong social connections are the primary driver of happiness. No surprise there. What struck me, however, is how these findings relate to ACEs. I had just finished reading Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship , which addresses this very issue. From the back cover: “Although it may seem that people suffer from an endless number...
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Helping Children To Thrive Despite Early Struggles [AnnDouglas.net]
“The beauty of being human is that we constantly evolve and change. We have experiences every day that can alter the course of our lives to help us rebuild what was broken and rediscover what was lost. We, as humans, are never irreparably broken because our brains and bodies are built to change and adapt. And young children are often able to change more easily than the rest of us, when makes the earliest years of life the most full of hope. The key to that hope is in relationships.” - Sara...
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Helping Kids Find the Wisdom in Overwhelm
In an unprecedented global shutdown, many of us, especially without the noise and distraction of everyday life, are facing intensified, often destabilizing feelings. And that includes kids—whether they’re able to say so or not.
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Her life changed when she focused on self-care. Now she's helping others do the same. (upworthy.com)
In 1996, Tomasa Macapinlac was in her early 30s, very successful, and working for one of the tech world's biggest companies. She was also extremely exhausted. No doubt, many Americans have felt these same burnout feelings, which can have real impacts on physical health. In fact, stressful jobs are a known cause of high blood pressure . Of course, everyone is different and self-care is going to vary from person to person. For some, it's about following a thorough daily routine. For others,...