Tagged With "Ashley Sides Johnson"
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The Healing Place Podcast: Barbara Rubel, MA, BCETS, D.A.A.E.T.S. - How to Help Suicide Loss Survivors & the Traumatic Impact of Suicide
Barbara Rubel is a suicide loss survivor and leading thanatologist. Thanatology is the scientific study of death. As a thanatologist, Barbara Rubel specializes in suicide loss survivor grief and educating professionals about traumatic loss. The third updated and revised edition of her book, But I Didn’t Say Goodbye: Helping families after a suicide, just launched on Amazon.
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The Healing Place Podcast - Jen Johnson: Everyday Mindful
I thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with Jen Johnson to discuss the gifts contained in mindfulness practice, her counseling services as well as her coaching work with clients all over the world, her photography and writing outlets, along with sharing pieces of her own healing journey with us.
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The Healing Place Podcast - Shenandoah Chefalo: Garbage Bag Suitcase
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!
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The House of Mourning (www.themoth.org)
Sometimes I free-write and riff when I first wake up. I let go of grammar, punctuation and sometimes even logic. I follow the words and the pen and see what happens. It doesn't have to be neat, artistic, poetic or amazing. It feels wonderful and is like splashing around in a pool in the mind. Today I was thinking about grief and ACEs and storyteller because I'd been listening to Kate Braestrup tell a story on Moth. Beautiful audio is what this is. I recommend listening. It's about grief,...
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The implicit bias of, “Mental Illness” and “mentally ill”, a lexicon of hurt.
How can we heal from the implicit bias of “ Mental Illness ” and “ mentally ill ”? I hear these words and it sounds like fingernails scraping down the chalkboard. “ The stain of dehumanization colors the mind, body and spirit and it is not so easily washed away.” - Michael Skinner Recently I read a blog post at the ACEsConnection website, “Erasing My ACES” by Sirena Wheeler. It was posted on April, 19, 2020. It struck a chord with me, many in fact and it put me on a spiral down memory lane.
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The implicit bias of, “Mental Illness” and “mentally ill”, a lexicon of hurt.
How can we heal from the implicit bias of “ Mental Illness ” and “ mentally ill ”? I hear these words and it sounds like fingernails scraping down the chalkboard. “ The stain of dehumanization colors the mind, body and spirit and it is not so easily washed away.” - Michael Skinner Recently I read a blog post at the ACEsConnection website, “Erasing My ACES” by Sirena Wheeler. It was posted on April, 19, 2020. It struck a chord with me, many in fact and it put me on a spiral down memory lane.
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The Self-Care Acronym You Need to Remember on Bad Mental Health Days [themighty.com]
Laura's note: While the author's example of rest includes watching television, in my opinion, true rest--the kind that is crucial to restoring us and that often is so hard to come by--does not involve screens of any kind. That is not to say that chilling in front of a screen can't be relaxing and fun--who doesn't need to zone out now and again?--but the deep rest we need to heal and fill our internal stores so we are equipped to handle stress on a bad mental health day or ANY day comes from...
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The Soulful Journey of Recovery is out TODAY!!!
A groundbreaking new book from the publisher of the New York Times bestseller Adult Children of Alcoholics …The book that started it all! "Tian Dayton picks up where Janet Woititz author of Adult Children of Alcoholics left off…..for those who have grown up in a family with addiction, mental illness, or other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the heartache and pain doesn’t end when they grow up and leave home. The legacy can last a lifetime and spread to generations unseen. In The...
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To Heal From Trauma, You Have to Feel Your Feelings [psychologytoday.com]
At any age, in any life stage, you can change. Whether you’re 77 years old or 17, you can learn, grow, adopt new habits, and make new choices to create a life you truly love. It may not always feel that way, though. When childhood emotional wounds tether you to the past, it can feel like you’re being swept away by a fast-moving current; although there are branches on either side of the riverbank to grab onto, something is mentally blocking you from reaching out. That “something” is a tether...
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Wellness and Resiliency Toolkit for Kids with Trauma
I'm excited to share a booklet created for youth in Oregon foster care at a Wellness camp this summer. Youth were provided with these quick, easy and effective (and evidence based) "Mindful Moments" exercises in their Wellness Toolkits and they were practiced throughout the day at camp so that they could be remembered in times of stress and dysregulation. The exercised are designed to quickly bring them back to a state of calm. The youth really enjoyed them, and found them easy and...
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3 Ways Healthy Relationships Help Heal Trauma
Healthy relationships matter, especially when it comes to healing from trauma. Asking for help can be difficult for everyone. It can be especially difficult for those who have survived trauma. Through therapy, it’s possible to realize that you do truly deserve deep relationships as you grow and evolve through life—in the good times and the hard times.
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A Guide to Glide Through the Great Awakening – Spread Hope Not Fear (wakeup-world.com)
What’s happening right now is the greatest awakening we’ve ever seen. Whether you are a light worker or just waking up to the whole consciousness thing, there is something for everyone to learn. It’s an emotional time, one that needs to be honored with kindness and compassion. People are grieving. They are grieving their loved ones and what was. Let yourself be where you are . Allow yourself to be in it. Feel what you feel and let your emotions move through you. It’s the way to the other...
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Another tool to improve student mental health? Kids talking to kids [hechingerreport.org]
TAOS, N.M. — Standing in front of 240 freshmen and 80 fellow seniors in her school’s gymnasium, a slight 17-year-old with her hair in pigtail braids took a long shuddering breath. Her audience was still. The girl had just revealed that she’d spent most of her middle-school years feeling suicidal, had been hospitalized for her own protection and spent two years in therapy before finally telling her mother the cause of her deep depression and thoughts of self harm: She’d been raped by a man...
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Cancer as a survivor
Many people use the phrase CPTSD to stand for PTSD from complex trauma. To me, C-PTSD means cancer and PTSD. I have cancer and I’m a trauma survivor. I’m a survivor with cancer but not yet a cancer survivor. Will I be a survivor squared?
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Channeling The Pain Of Depression Into Photography, And Finding You Are Not Alone (npr.org)
In a particularly difficult season of depression, photography was one of the tools Tara Wray used to cope. "Just forcing myself to get out of my head and using the camera to do that is, in a way, a therapeutic tool," says Wray, a photographer and filmmaker based in central Vermont. "It's like exercise: You don't want to do it, you have to make yourself do it, and you feel better after you do." "There were moments that I felt alone and isolated in a dark place, and I wondered if I would see...
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CPTSD and Social Awkwardness: Another Source of Isolation
For those of us who grew up with abuse and neglect at home, it can be hard to know how to ACT in social situations. Here's an example.... Have you ever been to a hotel where there is a person who is there to carry your bags, and even though you didn’t ask, they carry your bags to the room and it’s totally awkward, and you think “I’m supposed to give them a tip, right? I’ve, like seen this on TV. But you don’t have cash, and they’re just standing there ," and you think, "What do I do? What do...
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CPTSD Confusion: How to Get Clarity in All Your Relationships (Resilience Series)
One of the the most common, painful adult manifestations of Childhood PTSD is difficulty perceiving reality accurately, especially around the meaning of interactions we have with other people. We have trouble sometimes predicting that a choice is risky, or that a person we meet is unreliable, or whether our own sense of discomfort is an appropriate response. This is the sixth article and video in my resilience series, focusing on eight obstacles to healing from childhood trauma, and the...
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Crafting Provides Cross-Body Therapy Which Helps Mental Health [blogs.psychcentral.com]
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Sharyn of Homespun Dreams about how she uses craft as therapy. She lives with both anxiety and chronic pain. She enjoys crochet, knitting, sewing, tatting, and other crafts, sometimes mixing them together in one project. She also happens to have a nursing degree so she understands the benefits of crafting from both a personal and professional perspective. It was through her that I learned about the idea of crafting as cross-body therapy. What is...
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Donna Jackson Nakazawa on bringing down the stress-threat response
Cissy's note: Donna Jackson Nakazawa has graciously allowed me to cross-post some of her current and future Facebook page posts here in the Practicing Resilience for Self-Care and Healing community on ACEs Connection . Hello Friends. As a SciComm journalist with 30 years of reporting and 6 books under my belt, which focus on how our stress response governs our immune health, I’ve been thinking about what I have learned, and how I might help you quiet your body and mind during this # pandemic...
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Free Virtual Cafes brought to you by the Philadelphia ACE Task Force Pass this invitation along! [philadelphiaace.org]
From Philadelphia ACE Task Force, May 8, 2020 Has your workplace incorporated the science of Stress Reduction & Mindfulness into its Wellness Program? "Incorporating Mindfulness Into Your Work and Life: During COVID-19 and Beyond" Tuesday, May 12, 3:30 - 4:30 pm Eastern Time This interactive presentation will begin with a brief introduction around the science of mindfulness & will provide an overview of various mindfulness practices with ways to implement strategies in your personal...
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How a Therapy Dog Impacts a Child's Life
Afterward I discovered the horrific tragedy that had befallen this child only hours prior. I cried the entire car ride home. My sweet dog helped this little guy smile when smiling seemed an impossibility for these circumstances. She gave him an hour of reprieve from his heartache and trauma.
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I Now Suspect the Vagus Nerve Is the Key to Well-being [thecut.com]
Laura's Note: I have no research citation to back this up, but I have a hunch that childhood trauma may do a number on the vagus nerve, at least in some of us. Isn't it reassuring to know that we can help stimulate our vagus nerves through simple, free or inexpensive methods such as deep breathing and yoga (both of which get a lot of good press in this community, and for good reason)? It's no panacea, but it's not nothing. Have you ever read something a million times only to one day, for no...
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Mindfulness Can Be a Powerful Painkiller [PsychologyToday.com]
Mindfulness is a powerful painkiller that can dramatically enhance the quality of life in chronic pain sufferers, suggests new research. The findings add weight to previous studies which discovered that mindfulness can reduce pain severity by around 50 percent. This new meta-analysis, published in the peer-reviewed journal Evidence-Based Mental Health , analyzed the evidence from 21 previous studies involving 2,000 chronic pain sufferers. It was designed to assess whether mindfulness was as...
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My Story about Healing Moving from “What is wrong with me” to “What is happening – how can I take better care of myself?”
When I was a little girl, I had a lot of ear infections. Did anyone else experience that? Every summer in the middle of the fun of swimming in the pool, I would get an ear infection and one year I got one on my birthday. Obviously, I still remember it. It was a sad time. I always felt like I was missing out on things. And it became a pattern. I would go to the doctor and get lamb’s wool and drops put in my ear. It hurt a lot. I can still remember trying to get comfortable lying on the couch...
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Optimists For The Win: Finding The Bright Side Might Help You Live Longer [npr.org]
By Patti Neighmond, National Public Radio, September 1, 2019 Good news for the cheery: A Boston study published this month suggests people who tend to be optimistic are likelier than others to live to be 85 years old or more. That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors," the researchers from Boston University School of Medicine and the Harvard T.H.
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Seven Strategies I Use To Reregulate As Anxiety Symptoms Surface
So, how does Teri Wellbrock bring herself back into a state of calm once the anticipatory anxiety has been triggered? Here is Teri's personal go-to list. Please keep in mind she created this plan on a trial and error basis. She loaded her coping skills toolbox with exercises, fidgets, courses, books, therapy suggestions, and techniques discovered through personal research. Following is her top seven strategies, however, please note that she has a much larger bag-o-tricks to pull from if needed.
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Six Ways To Instantly Calm Your Brain and Body [bestbrainpossible.com]
The human being is the only animal known to cause itself suffering with its own thoughts. And it doesn’t end there. Then, we suffer because we suffer when getting upset about being treated unfairly, mad about having an illness, or sad about going to bed sad yet another day. The crazy thing is that this kind of unhappiness is totally a product of our brains which is at the same time good and bad. If your brain is causing the suffering, it can also stop it. Over millions of years of evolution,...
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Teaching People To Control Their Brainwaves Can Boost Their Attention, Too (MIT)
An original story for MIT, published December 6, 2019. Having trouble paying attention? MIT neuroscientists may have a solution for you: Turn down your alpha brain waves. In a new study, the researchers found that people can enhance their attention by controlling their own alpha brain waves based on neurofeedback they receive as they perform a particular task. The study found that when subjects learned to suppress alpha waves in one hemisphere of their parietal cortex, they were able to pay...
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Yoga Transformed Me After Trauma and Sexual Assault [yogajournal.com]
Laura's note: This story of sheer determination of transformation of self and community in the face of personal trauma AND systemic racism is breathtaking. Be warned: it may blow you away, as it did me. As a child, Ebony Smith survived sexual assault but didn’t have the tools to cope with the trauma until years later, when she found yoga. Now, she’s bringing the practice to her community, and others in crisis. Exactly 247 people came to practice yoga with me today. Why is that such a big...
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Re: SOLVITUR AMBULANDO - THIS LATIN PHRASE WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU MANAGE PROBLEMS [Quartzy]
Yes to walking -- sometimes I wonder if some of our seemingly epidemic rates of depression and anxiety could be at least in part related to the fact that at one time, most of us walked much more often (even daily) just to get where we needed to go, and since the mid-twentieth century we've generally all been doing less walking, sometimes next to none, because so many of us drive everywhere we go (sometimes because infrastructures give us few safe alternatives). I know that when I'm writing...
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Re: Transforming Trauma: Healing Through Connecting with Animals [psychologytoday.com]
I can tell you from a therapy-dog team handler, Sammie (our labradoodle) was born to help humans (particularly children) heal. She knows immediately, upon entering a room, who needs her love the most. She will snuggle into a child and not want to leave their side until their tears have dried and a smile lights up their face. And when I see she is beginning to exhibit signs of stress (as alluded to in the article), I give her a break (as specified by our Pet Partner guidelines, but also...
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Re: The Healing Place Podcast - Jen Johnson: Everyday Mindful
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen in and offer feedback, Laura. I feel blessed to meet beautiful souls from all over the world who are striving to help others along their healing journey. Jen Johnson is one of those souls.
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Re: Tell Me Who You Trust the Most
Thank you Cheryl! To me it rings as the "feeling" side of the eloquent post you wrote on Limbic Revision.
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Re: Yoga Transformed Me After Trauma and Sexual Assault [yogajournal.com]
LOVE THS ARTICLE!!! SOOO admire Ebony and want to cheer her on!!! Thank you for sharing with us, Laura!
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Re: Yoga Transformed Me After Trauma and Sexual Assault [yogajournal.com]
Are you kidding, Gail? I couldn't post this article here fast enough ! It's like the brass ring of post-trauma stories!
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Re: Yoga Transformed Me After Trauma and Sexual Assault [yogajournal.com]
TOTALLY AGREE!! It would be wonderful to connect with Ebony. Have you tried? Bring her into this community!!
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Re: Yoga Transformed Me After Trauma and Sexual Assault [yogajournal.com]
I haven't, but I will. Same with the author of another recent post that you and I talked about -- can't remember her name but I will look her up and invite her too. Been meaning to message you about it to make sure you hadn't already contacted her.
![Trauma Informed Care Champions: From Treaters to Healers [4 min — CHCS]](https://www.pacesconnection.com/g/practicing-resilience/fileSendAction/fcType/5/fcOid/480387610007073306/primaryPicture/true/fodoid/480387610007073321/imageType/LARGE_SQUARE_THUMBNAIL/inlineImage/true/thumbnail.jpg "Trauma Informed Care Champions: From Treaters to Healers [4 min — CHCS]")
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The Dark Side of People-Pleasing
If you’re feeling like the people YOU like, don’t like YOU -- and you don’t know why -- the first thing you want to look at is whether you are people-pleasing. People-pleasing is the act of changing yourself to make people like you -- trying to match their interests and values, flattering them, and hiding how you really think and feel in hopes that they’ll let you in, and keep you in their lives. People-pleasing is really common for people who were abused and neglected in childhood. It’s...
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ACEs Connection Anti-Racism Resources
Hi everyone! We'd like to introduce our new ACEs Connection Anti-Racism Resources List c ulled from resources shared by Learn4Life, Prevention Institute., Rise Magazine , V A TICN , Vital Village , 10% Happier . and our own ACEs Connection members and staff . You can access them from this widget on the top right side of our home page or by clicking here. The list has the following categories of resources: Racial Trauma, Historical Trauma, & Healing Police Brutality & Reform...
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The Neurobiology of Trauma: Somatic Strategies for Resilience
The Neurobiology of Trauma: Somatic Approaches to Resilience By Jennifer Walsh As we have all come to experience over the past several months, trauma is simply a component of the human condition. While it affects both individuals and communities in a variety of ways, we have all experienced difficult, stressful, or even traumatic events over the course of our lifetime. Although social workers have traditionally worked with these vulnerable populations, there are numerous professionals...
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Unbecoming an Armadillo: Recovering from Trauma with EMDR
Unbecoming an Armadillo By: Victoria F. Burns, PhD, LSW Victoriafrances49@gmail.com Instagram: @betesandbites “When you are traumatized, you are basically in a permanent defensive mode” — Gabor Mate I’m sitting across from Meg on her charcoal grey love seat. My forearms are resting on a velvety mustard-yellow throw cushion and I’m holding crescent shaped pulsers in each hand. Meg’s my psychologist; a rare gem who specializes in chronic illness and trauma. Every two weeks, we spend an hour...
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'The Shape of Stories' How do we make sense of things
Click here for Evite info for The Shape of Stories, Tuesdays in July These programs are part of a series of Coping Cafe, which provides artistic tools to help people manage life changes and sparks meaningful dialogue about truth, fiction, and transformation. It is "essential" that we consume uplifting content now. Behind the racism and trauma are inadequate stories. Time to take a look... On July 7th at 4:00pm EDT - We will explore narratives, their impact, and how stories influence societal...
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Safety, Health, and Back-to-School Plans in a Pandemic with School Nurse, Robin Cogan: A Better Normal Discussion on August 4th, 12 p.m. PST (3p.m. EST)
Please join ACEs Connection member and school nurse, writer, and public speaker, Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN for a discussion about the pandemic as it relates to family planning around back-to-school (or not) plans. The conversation with be hosted by Parenting with ACEs Community Manager, @Cissy White (ACEs Connection Staff) and facilitated by @Alison Cebulla (ACEs Connection Staff) , the Northeast Region Community Facilitator. Many of us are still not sure if our schools will open this fall...
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This wasn't the first time
Going out to buy groceries, going out for a walk, driving your kid back home from school. For most people these activities are normal, everyday things with little to no excitement, as they should be. Unfortunately, getting food, exercising, and supporting my son’s education have been a little more out of the ordinary for me. You see, I am a Mexican Indigenous man, brown skin, shaved head. My ethnicity and physical appearance are by no means unusual, especially in the part of the country...
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Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
Coping with Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic: One-Pager
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Back-to-School in a Pandemic? Questions, Concerns, and Discussion with School Nurse, Robin Cogan
Robin is a brilliant, passionate, and vocal school nurse with almost two decades of experience as a New Jersey school nurse in the Camden City School District. She is the Legislative Co-Chair for the New Jersey State School Nurses Association and she joined us last week for A Better Normal community discussion about back-to-school (or not) plans families are facing this school year. Robin serves as faculty in the School Nurse Certificate Program at Rutgers University-Camden School of Nursing...
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Junk Journaling: a creative process for really hard times
My brain still isn't totally back to the Ivy League straight-A standard I was used to. Maybe it never will be. But you know what? I no longer care about that old way. This brain, this miraculous body, it's the house of an Inner Artist who knows how to move from what is into the most delicious version of what might be. I don't believe this makes me special. I believe we all have that inner creative compass, chomping at the bit to lead us home.