Tagged With "Live Performance"
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The Effects of Trauma from “Growing up Too Fast” [blogs.psychcentral.com]
One of the most common euphemisms and justifications for a certain type of childhood trauma is “growing up too fast.” It is a euphemism because it is used to minimize the pain that the person felt as a child when their needs weren’t being met by describing it in seemingly neutral or even positive language. It’s a justification because it is often used to argue that growing up faster and becoming “mature beyond your years” is indeed a good thing. We will explore and address all of this here.
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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 Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2020
Hi Folks, The May edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php or PDF - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2020-05-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_May_2020.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us, Thanks! Michael . “ Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” - Helen Keller The Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2020 – please...
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8 Reasons Why People Deny Childhood Trauma and Its Results [blog.selfarcheology.com]
Why do people think they had a good, normal childhood, or deny childhood trauma and its results altogether? I often hear people say things like: My childhood was normal. Yes, there were some good things and some bad things – but that's life. My mother got sad, distant, or angry when I didn't perform well or acted badly, and my father sometimes hit me with a belt – but it was for my own good. All of this helped me to become a better person – and I'm thankful for it. Yes, sometimes I feel...
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Four Ways to Calm Your Mind in Stressful Times (greatergood.berkeley.edu)
Life throws chaos at us on a regular basis—whether it’s our finances, our relationships, or our health. In the work world, around 50 percent of people are burned out in industries like health care , banking , and nonprofits , and employers spend $300 billion per year on workplace-related stress. When we’re stressed, we’re less likely to notice if a colleague looks burned out or sad and more likely to get irritated if they don’t perform as we expect. However, when you’re in a calmer and...
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Free Live &Online - Daily Meditation & Support Groups [mindfulleader.org]
From Mindful Leader, March 22, 2020 To help keep us connected while we are isolated, help us stay calm during a time of great anxiety, to give us an opportunity to care for one another, and to be together, we are providing free live & online - daily meditation & support groups multiple times throughout the day. Every weekday, Monday - Friday, from Monday, March 23rd - Friday, May 1st at the times listed below we will offer 30 minute live & online - daily meditation & support...
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How Helping Others Benefits Your Mental Health
Addiction, anxiety, and depression can be all-consuming and enslaving. When I was spending every night, isolated in my room, indulging in opiates and vodka - my entire world hyper-focused and revolved around my pain. It was certainly not the life I was choosing - or so I thought. My messy head was tortuous, chaotic, and I felt absolutely powerless against it. All of my thoughts were amplified extensions of: “You are never going to be enough and you are unworthy of love and happiness.” I did...
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How Your Happiness Can Spread to the People Around You [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
While some marathon runners raise money for their favorite causes, Shemaiah Weekes asked his friends and followers to pledge random acts of kindness. When he finally crossed the finish line after 26.2 miles, his community had committed to perform more than 100 kind acts. “I’m hoping this will spread a wave of kind acts which goes far beyond those who make direct pledges,” says Weekes. He came up with the idea after taking the GGSC’s free online course, The Science of Happiness , which...
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Structure of brain networks is not fixed (neurosciencenews.com)
Summary: Brain networks are spatially and functionally fluid, and not static, as previously believed. Source: Georgia State University The shape and connectivity of brain networks — discrete areas of the brain that work together to perform complex cognitive tasks — can change in fundamental and recurring ways over time, according to a study led by Georgia State University. The interaction and communication among neurons, known as “functionally connectivity,” gives rise to brain networks.
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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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Young People are Using Musical Theater to Heal Their Trauma — and it's Working [nationswell.com]
By Monica Humphries, Nation Swell, July 12, 2019. On the drive home from Priya Shah’s first Storycatchers musical, she pulled over to cry. Shah, who now serves as the executive director of Storycatchers, had just seen a musical at the Illinois Youth Center, a juvenile detention center in Warrenville, Illinois. She watched girls tell stories of sexual abuse, battery and neglect. She also saw stories of hope and resilience. “It struck me that these characters I had just watched struggle, joke,...
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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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200 hr yoga life skills & teacher training (**Donation based)
Skills and wisdom for creating the best possible experience of life. This program is designed to give you skills and understanding that you can use now AND that will continue to deepen and unfold over time. The curriculum is resilience-focused. What that means in a practical sense is that the starting place is of acknowledgment of the traumas potentially being held by yourself and your students. This allows for these amazing practices to be applied in a way that is most supportive of the...
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The Art & Science of Resilience, Yoga & Mindfulness for Working with Trauma **Donation based
This workshop is holistic, interactive, applied, and designed for those who want to incorporate mindfulness-based practices such as yoga and meditation into their daily lives in order to increase their own and/or their client’s ability to handle the ordinary and sometimes extraordinary stresses of daily life. We will dive deep into what trauma and resilience look like from scientific, psychological, and cultural perspectives, explore some of the origins and impacts of trauma and learn...
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A Better Normal: Healing Trauma Through Music with Nick Larson - Friday, Aug 14th at Noon PT
Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. Friday, August 14th, 2020 12pm PT // 1pm MT // 2pm CT // 3pm ET Hosted by Alison Cebulla and facilitated by Cissy White of ACEs Connection with Guest Nick Larson, lead singer of band Próxima Parada. >>Click here to register<< "Before any of us had the vocabulary to define ACEs [ACEs = adverse childhood experiences], we were using music as the...
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The Difficult Road to Intimacy: Living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is very challenging. It affects every aspect of the lives of those who suffer under its symptoms. In this article, we are going to examine together with a brief synopsis of CPTSD and how this disorder creates difficulty in forming and maintaining intimate relationships.
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Re: The Difficult Road to Intimacy: Living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Well done Shirley. Lots of great insight. Informative and helps us to know we are not alone and there is hope and healing. hmnn....I didn't find the article triggering in a bad way. Knowledge is power. Take care.
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"A Better Normal" Community Discussion: Suicide Awareness and Community Cafes
Join us on Friday November 6, 2020 from noon to 1:00 PST as we come together and join Satya Chandragiri MD, Bonnie O’Hern RN, Denise Proudfoot RN, & Michael Polacek RN for a discussion around the tender issue of suicide. Together we will discuss ways people and providers can support each other and encourage communities to take action to support one another around suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and the layers of culture and structural barriers to care. A special emphasis will be...
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Art and Trauma: Creativity As a Resiliency & Healing Factor
Art and Trauma: Creativity As a Resiliency & Healing Factor I have long believed that all of the creative arts are healing. I was drawn to music because it made me feel good, first just listening, then learning to play the drums and then performing in rock bands. Later in life, learning the guitar and singing along with songwriting. Sadly, trauma disconnects so many of us from our creative outlets...finding the ways to reconnect with our creative selves goes a long ways in healing the...
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Art and Trauma: Creativity As a Resiliency & Healing Factor
Art and Trauma: Creativity As a Resiliency & Healing Factor I have long believed that all of the creative arts are healing. I was drawn to music because it made me feel good, first just listening, then learning to play the drums and then performing in rock bands. Later in life, learning the guitar and singing along with songwriting. Sadly, trauma disconnects so many of us from our creative outlets...finding the ways to reconnect with our creative selves goes a long ways in healing the...
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Make December the First Month of the Rest of Your Life
This month many of us are heading into a holiday season whether it be Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah or another notable day. It is traditionally a time when we get together with family and friends, open our hearts, and put our absolute best foot forward in hospitality and grace. The pandemic has changed the physicality of our lives but not the meaning and intention that lies beneath this very special season. The origin of the word season comes from the Latin word ‘satio’, meaning ‘sowing’ and...
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Discovering the Need for Reflection
My son often complains that he can hear my footsteps throughout the house when he’s trying to sleep. He says it sounds like I’m running. ‘Why don’t you slow down,’ he asks. When I think about it I guess I am rushing around to do this and do that, get things accomplished, and finish tasks. In fact, I take pride in my productivity, sometimes patting myself on the back at what I have accomplished by 9:00 a.m.! After my youngest son Jesse died, I started a foundation and began to travel almost...
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Meditation Techniques for Managing Emotions
Are you emotional about a certain situation? Or feeling "too much,"? Well, you are not alone in this, and it is not entirely a bad thing to feel this way. However, our emotions shape the way we perceive certain events and might even cloud our judgment regarding people and incidents. At the same time, it is also important to understand that emotions are part of life, and they complete us. It is part of human nature to feel certain things, and one cannot simply escape this reality. What we can...
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The Power of Empathy and How to Get Better at It (thriveglobal.com)
What is Empathy? Defined as ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’, the human capacity for empathy is hardwired into our brain. Mirror neurons cause us to mimic an action inside our brain when we see others perform it. In ‘The Neuroscience of Empathy’, Sylvie Tremblay explains that from the age of 4 years old, strong connections between parts of our brain strengthen, to enable us to recognise social and emotional clues and identify what others are feeling [1] . Empathy...
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Re: The Difficult Road to Intimacy: Living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
I am just starting to go through the topics covered in the last 2 years here, and just commenting on a few articles I have found interesting since I joined up here. If this is the wrong way to comment on older topics, please let me know and I can learn to do it a different way, perhaps by commenting on a comment if need be. Thank You MM
Member
Katie Collier
Blog Post
Eight Things You Should Know About the Stress You're Experiencing [pulse.seatltlechildrens.org]
By Rose Ibarra, Seattle Children's, May 24, 2021 For many of us, the past year has been uniquely stressful. Have you felt especially exhausted, struggled to focus or been more irritable than usual? Maybe you’ve found yourself wondering why you can’t cope with the stress better. “There are very real, biological reasons why we’re finding it harder than usual to perform,” said Dr. Shannon Simmons , a psychiatrist at Seattle Children’s and medical director of the Psychiatry and Behavioral...
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Re: Beautifully Paired: Promoting Mental Health Through Arts and Education [greenvillesun.com]
I read this article this morning and got busy, forgot to mention that this is what I am all about. What a wonderful article and I saved it for later reference..Am really grateful I save everything so it was easy to come back to. Alot of people who were either my friends, or past members of Anonymous Groups and Womens Therapy Groups were so hesitant to even pick up a crayon in group or therapy class for fear of being " Less Then " someone else in the room I was working with women in one of...
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How Do You Want to Live Your Life
I had a good life prior to December 14, 2012, the day of the Sandy Hook tragedy that took my six-year-old son Jesse's life. I was a single mom with a full-time job, a first and seventh grader, living on a horse farm with a wonderful mother/grandmother living nearby to help, and a supportive extended family. Always on the go, I woke up early, went to bed late, and would list the day’s accomplishments in my head each night. When I woke in the morning I would thank God for another opportunity...
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A Gathering of the Tribes, 9/11 & The Surviving Spirit Newsletter September 2021
The Surviving Spirit Newsletter September 2021 Healing the Mind, Body & Spirit Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars”. Kahlil Gibran Hi Folks, Twenty years ago today at this time of the morning I was getting ready to leave for Ellenville, New York to perform and speak at the Annual New York Association of...
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THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC
THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC by Michael Skinner “ Music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch.” - Debasish Mridha Music has a profound way of touching us in so many ways. For myself, the power of music has given me great joy, hope and healing. Music has been a lifesaver for me and that is not something I throw around lightly. I would like to share with you how it has affected my life in so many positive ways - I am forever grateful to have the gift of music in my life. Music...
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Happy Holidays from Cowart Trauma Informed Partnership!
This truly is a special time for many of us, but let's also acknowledge that this is a very busy, stressful, and sometimes overwhelming time. This blog post imagines a new kind of holiday tradition, grounded in all the kinds of things that help us in stressful times.
We also share newly available resources and exciting news about what's to come in the new year, including a grant-funded project to help lower stress levels in schools!
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How to Thrive (Not Just Survive) Disruptive Change
COVID and Hybrids and Change, oh my! It’s no news that learning how to navigate in our current world is challenging. It can be mind-numbing at times. And our workplaces are no exception. We no longer have “silver bullets” that are used to help lead and navigate our way through this chaos. There is no direct cause and effect correlations between action and results – if we do this, then that will occur. The VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complexity and ambiguous) world doesn’t allow it. But we...
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The Loss of Cultural Identity and Neurological Dysregulation
Pre-COVID, I was invited to speak at a conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. During lunch the organizers brought dancers from the Apache tribe to perform. What we witnessed was so powerful and moving, that it prompted me to inquire about the spiritual significance of the songs and dance. They explained to me that after going to war, the warriors returned to their land and were gathered together to perform that particular dance and song. As a tribal African woman, it all made perfect sense. As...
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The Surviving Spirit Newsletter August 2022
Hi folks, Welcome to the August Edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter. Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health is out - It can be read online via this & you can also subscribe - http://ml.survivingspirit.com/dada/mail.cgi/archive/newsletter/20220825143551/ or this - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2022-08-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_August_2022.pdf Newsletter Contents : I created these two music videos for the International Human Trafficking...
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Reciprocal Authenticity
You can view the original post on Rise to Resilience from August 17, 2022 here . I named “reciprocal authenticity” to one of my closest friends, Leona, on December 11, 2021. I’ve thought about and referenced it a lot since then, in a number of contexts. I knew a blog was percolating in my mind, body, and soul, but the Just Right start to it hadn’t arrived yet. Then I received these messages from another close friend: If I had to pick three words to describe you, they might include Wholesome...
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Practicing random acts of kindness is a big help for people with depression and anxiety (upworthy.com)
via RDNE Stock project/Pexels A volunteer gives out food to the needy. To read more of Tod Perry's article, please click here. Depression and anxiety rates are on the rise , especially among the youth. One way people can overcome this debilitating disorder is through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which helps to recognize and reshape negative thoughts to bring joy back into depressed people’s lives. However, CBT might not always address patients’ need for social connections, which are...
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The Surviving Spirit Newsletter December 2023
The latest Surviving Spirit Newsletter - Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health is out - It can be read online via this & you can also subscribe - http://ml.survivingspirit.com/dada/mail.cgi/archive/newsletter/20231212193838/ Healing the Mind, Body & Spirit Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared...