Blog

Louise Godbold is the Executive Director of Echo. Before joining Echo in 2010, she worked for over 15 years in the nonprofit field, both in nonprofit management and as a consultant. Louise is the developer and lead trainer for Echo’s curricula on trauma and resilience. She is a trauma survivor and #MeToo silence breaker.

Healing our Ghosts is a new podcast by Ana Joanes, filmmaker and creative spirit who brought us Wrestling Ghosts, a groundbreaking documentary about parenting with ACEs. This new podcast has a unique vision: The premiere episode of Healing Our Ghosts is with one of my all time favorite people, Cissy White. She is a brilliant writer, who speaks nationally about the impact of trauma and her healing journey. Cissy believes that trauma survivors must be leading this work and that it is not...

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...

What a delightful conversation Teri Wellbrock engaged in with the passionate and compassionate Shenandoah Chefalo, author of "Garbage Bag Suitcase: A Memoir" and faculty member of The Center for Trauma Resilient Communities. They dove into the depths of: the healing work of Crossnore and The Center for Trauma Resilient Communities; growing up in the foster care system; trauma-brain; 3 proven resilience-building factors; compassion approaches; and why they dislike tomatoes!

Your mood is tied to your mental and physical health and if you’ve been having some bad days recently you may want to make a few lifestyle changes to improve your overall mood and health. While it may seem difficult to make some of these changes in your life, doing them will have a huge, almost immediate effect on you. Improving your mood and overall mental health will have a huge impact on your mind and body and can make your situation better overall. Doing a few simple things like...

I’ve been talking about resilience in recent posts — the obstacles that hold back recovery, and the strengths we need to keep healing. Last week the topic was fear. In this post (and the video that goes with it) I want to go up a layer to the next strength, and that’s self-care . I used to think self-care was just hot baths and chocolate for people whose problems were so small that this would actually solve them. But 25 years of continuous healing and strength-building has taught me that,...

Hardly anyone would claim to be a stranger to holiday stress. From money woes to holiday travel, traditions, and family tension, at some point everyone has struggled to make it to January. But the holidays can be a particularly tough time of year for anyone with a family history of abuse, whether it’s emotional or physical. The idea that one shouldn’t be alone during the holiday season is drilled into our heads and we want familiar people near, even if those people can be toxic to us.

I’ve been talking about resilience in recent posts — the obstacles that hold back recovery, and the strengths we need to keep healing. Last week the topic was fear. In this post (and the video that goes with it) I want to go up a layer to the next strength, and that’s self-care . I used to think self-care was just hot baths and chocolate for people whose problems were so small that this would actually solve them. But 25 years of continuous healing and strength-building has taught me that,...

Most people have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder that afflicts many men and women returning from a war zone. It is characterized by flashbacks, unstable moods, and survivor’s remorse. However, many have never heard of a condition that often develops in childhood and changes the course of the child’s life forever, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). For a good definition of CPTSD, we turned to Beauty After Bruises, an organization that offers outreach focused on adult...

By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, November 13, 2019 When the stress in your life just doesn’t let up, and it feels like you have no support to get through the day—let alone do everything you need to do to be the best parent you can be—it can seem like there’s nothing that can make it better. But there are resources that can help, and this kind of stress—known as “toxic stress”—doesn’t have to define your life. In this video, learn more about what toxic stress is, how it...

I wrote Victim to Victory, healing generational abuse from my bloodline, during a seven-year journey of being very sick. I am not a writer. I am a healer. In those years of losing my ability to walk and having my family abandon me I turned inward, asking why and how do I get out of this straight jacket. I did everything imaginable, but the pain was chronic and my will was losing strength. In my darkest hours, I would hear a voice during my meditations. I had nothing to lose, so I followed...

Psychotherapist Traci Ruble believes that everybody — even folks with close-knit friends and family — gets lonely. It can happen anytime, and it doesn’t only happen when you’re alone. You might have felt it at a party with friends; or on a crowded subway watching strangers on their phones; or while you’re spending time with your partner. But Ruble thinks she’s found a simple way to make us feel less isolated and more connected. It starts by doing the exact opposite of what your parents...