Tagged With "Addiction Isn't the Problem"
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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 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 CPTSD, Do You Need to Love Yourself?
One of the messages that’s been drilled into us by popular culture is that “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.” This is something people tell you when you get your heart broken and you feel like you must be… no good! And for a lot of years, every time I heard this I felt like a different species than everyone else. Because there were times when I didn’t particularly love myself – and here and there when I was younger, times when I hated myself. But there was a never...
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Transcending Childhood Trauma [thefix.com]
"All healing is release from the past. It is enough to heal the past and make the future free. It is enough to let the present be accepted as it is." Course of Miracles Most addicts have survived some form of childhood trauma. In recovery, they must make an effort to heal the wounds of the past. They must also accept the fact that this is an inside job. Nothing outside of themselves is going to heal them. Therapy and support groups are supportive environments, but addicts have to do all the...
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Trauma, Attachment, and Relationships
Interventions in the Attachment and Relationship Problems Trauma Can Cause Julie De Wilde Alfred Adler Graduate School Abstract Much research has been done on the negative effects of trauma on attachment, which then has negative effects on relationships. Research more recently has focused on the positive post traumatic growth that can happen when clients receive safe, healthy attachment to a therapist they can trust. Research also includes the benefits to the client when a therapist includes...
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Vacancy: Self-Worth in the Mind of a Childhood Abuse Survivor
The feeling of having a healthy supply of self-worth is something I can only imagine might have been more readily available, natural and automatic if I was able to see that in myself as a child. As an adult survivor of childhood abuse, self-worth was not supplied in healthy doses while growing up.
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Victim to Victory: Memoir
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...
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When Hidden Grief Gets Triggered During COVID-19 Confinement
first published by The Meadows 4/15/20 Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your own divorce, your parents, or both, or the abandonment of one parent, a childhood or parental illness or death, financial upheaval, constant moving around, or growing up with parental addiction or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — they are likely to...
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When Mindfulness Is a Trauma Trigger: April #MeToo
While mindfulness can be a powerful tool for self-care, it can also act as a trauma trigger. Here I describe how I've come to terms with that.
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Addiction Isn't the Problem, It's the Symptom [pesi.com]
Note: You may receive an unsolicited invite to a class when downloading the article. By Gabor Mate, PESI, May 2, 2020 Have you ever wondered, as I have, how someone with an addiction could go through 21 detox centers and 5 treatment facilities, yet continue to relapse? It wasn’t until I started working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—one of the most concentrated areas of drug use, mental illness, and poverty in North America—that I realized... The reason these treatments do NOT work is...
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Are You Re-Traumatizing Yourself? 16 Things We Do That Can Set Us Back with Childhood PTSD
Part of the damage from abuse and neglect in childhood is what actually happened when we were kids. But a significant part of the problem today comes from what I call "Inside Traumas." These are self-defeating behaviors that are common to people who are frequently in a state of dysregulation. They start as an innocent attempt to feel calm and stable, but they can grow into significant traumas that cause real problems for us and others. If you'd like to learn about my online course, Healing...
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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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Bullying alters brain structure, raises risk of mental health problems [medicalnewstoday.com]
According to the National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice Statistics, between one and three students in the United States report being bullied at school. In recent years, cyberbullying has become a widespread problem. Cyberbullying is any bullying performed via cell phones, social media, or the Internet in general. [For more on this story by Chiara Townley, go to https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324089.php ]
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Care for Yourself, So You Can Care for Others
December can be a busy and stressful time for everyone. Please see the message below from the Office of Head Start, reminding you to take care of yourself and giving some helpful daily tips- Safe Foundations, Healthy Futures Campaign Care for Yourself, So You Can Care for Others December 2018 December can be a particularly hard time to take care of yourself. You may be busy, over-scheduled, stressed about finances, or worried about family. This month, the Safe Foundations, Healthy Futures...
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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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Do You Need Spirituality to Recover from CPTSD?
During a break in taping my new course on dating and relationships, I recorded this story about how hard it can be to change the self-defeating patterns that so often flow from Childhood PTSD. I talk about one summer when I was working hard to get through a dark time, and then a miracle took me by surprise. You can learn the writing/meditation techniques I mention as a source of daily healing, here . You can access my articles, courses and resources for people with Childhood PTSD on my blog,...
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Healing from Codependency and the Freedom that Awaits
There is no healing without recognition of that which needs to be healed. Someone who has clogged arteries cannot heal those clogged arteries if they are unaware they have clogged arteries. To heal mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, or cognitively first requires an acknowledgment of some kind of deficit or wound. In order to acknowledge a wound one must become conscious or self-aware of such wound.
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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 Improving Mood Can Help Heal
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...
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How to Heal Emotional Trauma (wakeup-world.com)
Understanding Emotional Wounds We tend to think of an emotional wound as the original traumatic experience – as the “thing” that happened to us, but the wound is actually the dis-empowering belief that we developed as a result of the traumatic experience. In the search for emotional security, our natural response to any traumatic event is to make sense of it. We “make sense”of things by creating beliefs. Beliefs that we develop in response to traumatic experiences are Traumatic Beliefs.
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How Trauma Therapy Cultivated My Recovery
I was 5 years old when I had my first encounter with trauma. Too young to comprehend the magnitude of the situation, my first grade class participated in a “Good Touch/Bad Touch” workshop,centered around educating and recognizing signs of sexual abuse. I found relief in finding a safe place to lay down the burden I had been carrying. I went straight to the school counselor and told her, in vivid description, the intimate details of my unwarranted molestation. I remember the grueling...
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Meditate Together: Free live & online daily group meditation (www.mindfulleader.org)
This is a Mindful Leader COVID-19 Support Initiative - free until Friday, May 1st. From the Mindful Leader website:
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Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience Two-Day Intensive Training
with Author, Carolyn Rich Curtis, Ph.D. 8:30 AM–5:00 PM $399 for 2-day Intensive Training CEUs are available for an additional charge. Each trainee must have a copy of Mind Matters ($299 plus tax (CA and SD only) plus S/H) As a result of this training , you will learn to teach: Self-soothing skills to manage emotions Ways to analyze stressful thoughts How to deal with intrusive memories Ways to develop a protective lifestyle And you, as an instructor, will learn . . . How to provide a safe...
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Resources for ACEs Survivors
With the link between ACEs and health outcomes now firmly established, many people are asking how to help those who have survived ACEs. Often people are seeking written resources. Having developed resilience curricula that were piloted at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and taught to various high-risk populations, I’d like to suggest some resources. As an outgrowth of these trainings, I developed three books that are skills-based and experiential, since information alone...
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Seven Benefits of Working with a Therapy Animal from a Handler's Perspective
Sometimes I feel selfish for walking away from our therapy dog sessions with my heart overflowing with joy, a smile radiating from my face AND heart. I love watching this dog turn a child’s tears into giggles. Sammie has a thing for kids. Her tail wags every time she sees one. Whether we are walking the halls at a school or the trails at a nature preserve. She wants to meet them all and offer a snuggle. As a result, her tail thumps in canine happiness, and I just can’t help but grin.
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Tapping through Panic into Peace
In these times of Coronovirus concerns, it is comforting to know we have an Emotional Freedom Techniques method of tapping that does not require touching the face. Click this link to see an illustration of a tapping protocol that is especially useful in calming fears: https://www.janebuchan.com/blog/ The Gamut Point, found on the back of the hand between the ring and baby finger tendons, sits on Triple Warmer, our fight or flight meridian. Our personal First-Responder, we need Triple Warmer...
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you are one of the cool kids
We spend a great deal of our energy on fitting in. While insecurity and ego are sometimes part of this effort, it’s inappropriate to think of “fitting in” as a weakness or a crutch. The drive to connect is built into the essence of being human. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk in his (one of the best I’ve read in the last five years) book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” says, “Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level, we barely exist as individual organisms. Our...
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Re: The Soulful Journey of Recovery is out TODAY!!!
Tian, congratulations on your new book! And thanks so much for letting us know about it here. I know there are many here who will be very excited to know you've published this and will benefit greatly from what the book offers. I know a few ACAs that I will share it with.
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Re: The Soulful Journey of Recovery is out TODAY!!!
Thank you so much Laura, I follow the ACE's Connection closely and recommend it to many....it is just a wonderful service and community, I am so glad that Carey introduced me to your community! Well done!
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Re: The Soulful Journey of Recovery is out TODAY!!!
Thanks, Tian. We're glad you have joined us.
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Re: How Trauma Therapy Cultivated My Recovery
Beautiful and brilliant. Thank you for sharing. I wish you continued resolution and growing tranquility as you move along your healing journey. Peace, Teri
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Re: How Trauma Therapy Cultivated My Recovery
This is such an impressive account of overcoming trauma and addiction, and to boot it's educational and informative. Your story is a model of how one can transform painful experience into something that benefits others who are recovering from their own trauma. Thanks for posting, Tricia.
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Re: Secondary Traumatic Stress for Educators: Understanding and Mitigating the Effects [KQED]
Thanks for posting this here, Mai Le. As our society becomes more trauma-aware/informed and as more of us take on the role of supporting children and others who've experienced trauma, it's imperative we have a plan in place to support those at risk of secondary trauma, or we will have a whole other problem on our hands that could contribute to perpetuating the trauma cycle. Glad to see you also shared this in the ACEs in Education community too!
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Re: The Healing Place Podcast - Jen Johnson: Everyday Mindful
Great conversation about mindfulness and meditation. You two covered a lot of territory! Thanks, Teri.
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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: Calming Your Anxious Mind Through Rhythmic Movement
Joanna, such great solutions to the problem of wanting to meditate but being emotionally uncomfortable or triggered by trying to sit too long. It's possible to have the best of both worlds -- the benefits of mindfulness meditation AND mindful movement in one. Thank you for sharing your own experience and good ideas with so many of us who can use an alternative to traditional seated meditation. This may encourage some who were hesitant to meditate because of the potential for anxiety to go...
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Re: Do You Need Spirituality to Recover from CPTSD?
Hi Anna, I'm a holistic psychotherapist with a specialization in childhood trauma. I do believe that one's connection with a Higher Power—in whatever form that takes—makes a profound difference in healing. Thank you for your post and video. Warmly, Diane
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Re: How Helping Others Benefits Your Mental Health
It's impressive that you helped yourself heal and recover by reaching out to help others and now are continuing to do so by sharing your story and suggestions here. Thank you for an inspiring post, Tricia.
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Re: Resources for ACEs Survivors
These are wonderful. Thank you for sharing, Glenn! To make sure community members can access your books as more recent posts push your post down the Blog Posts list, it would be excellent if you could add these 3 books to this Resources for Downloading folder . Or I can add them if you would prefer; please let me know!
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Re: CPTSD and Social Awkwardness: Another Source of Isolation
Great post. The thing I like about your blog posts/videos, Anna, is that they often address those otherwise "sidelined" effects of childhood trauma -- the ones that don't often make the clinical "symptoms of childhood trauma" lists. They're also the ones that those of us who've experienced childhood trauma suspect, in our perhaps not-always accurate (because they've been thrown off-kilter by the trauma) guts and hearts that this everyday problem that we can't quite put our finger on is yet...
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Re: Victim to Victory: Memoir
Heather, Congratulations on your triumph in overcoming, illness, abuse, and PTSD, and congratulations on your book! Disclosing one's story can be healing for the storyteller and for those who receive the story. Many of us on this site are looking for inspiration and new paths to healing, so thank you so much for sharing the information about your book.
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Re: Are You Re-Traumatizing Yourself? 16 Things We Do That Can Set Us Back with Childhood PTSD
While I agree that these behaviors can be re-traumatizing and are characteristic of dysregulation, in my mind they are all simply symptoms of unaddressed, untreated/undertreated trauma. They're the "cries for help" that tell the person experiencing them (and maybe the people around them) that there's something not quite right. But even after effective treatment of childhood trauma, they can still crop up because those old habits we developed to survive all those years ago die very hard.
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The Healing Place Podcast: Dr. Jamie Marich - Trauma & the 12 Steps; Addiction Recovery; & Utilizing Complimentary Healing Tools
Teri Wellbrock sits down with Dr. Jamie Marich who describes herself as a facilitator of transformative experiences. A clinical trauma specialist, expressive artist, writer, yogini, performer, short filmmaker, Reiki master, and recovery advocate, she unites all of these elements in her mission to inspire healing in others.
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Re: The Healing Place Podcast: Dr. Jamie Marich - Trauma & the 12 Steps; Addiction Recovery; & Utilizing Complimentary Healing Tools
That’s a terrific idea! Looking forward!!
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Too Much Alone Time? Tips To Connect And Find Joy While Social Distancing [npr.org]
By Alison Aubrey, National Public Radio, May 10, 2020 We are social creatures. So it's no surprise that quarantine fatigue has begun to set in. "Humans are wired to come together physically," says psychologist Judith Moskowitz of Northwestern University. But, loneliness has become widespread in modern life. And, social distancing has just exacerbated the problem, Moskowitz says. Social connection is essential to our well-being, since prolonged isolation can increase the risk of depression...
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Re: The Healing Place Podcast: Dr. Jamie Marich - Trauma & the 12 Steps; Addiction Recovery; & Utilizing Complimentary Healing Tools
Thank you Teri for your endeavors with these helpful, insightful podcasts.
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Re: The Healing Place Podcast: Dr. Jamie Marich - Trauma & the 12 Steps; Addiction Recovery; & Utilizing Complimentary Healing Tools
Thanks so much for the positive feedback! I feel blessed to be able to share these insightful conversations ❤
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Re: The Healing Place Podcast: Dr. Jamie Marich - Trauma & the 12 Steps; Addiction Recovery; & Utilizing Complimentary Healing Tools
Thanks, Jondi! This was a trauma-recovery jam-packed conversation. Hoping all is well with you in NYC.