Tagged With "Micro Moments of Joy"
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The Best Medicine for Confronting Trauma: Be Present [yesmagazine.org]
When our beloved dog had cancer, we did all we could to help him be comfortable toward the end of his life. Because Rottweilers are so strong, they require a lot of pain medication, so we essentially had to give him what seemed like horse tranquilizers. While we were all caring for him, my daughters were in charge of giving him his daily meds. One day the girls were gone, and as I grabbed his handful of meds I thought, “When’s the last time I took my stuff?” So, I gathered all my vitamins,...
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The Books That Helped Me Transition from Trauma to Triumph: A Book Review Series - "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life"
Learning to find my gifts within my chaos has changed everything. Everything.
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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 Many Faces of Grief
“…Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding…. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self….” – From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran There are many kinds of loss that we can encounter in life. However, losses surrounding addiction can be particularly confusing; they tend...
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Three Meditations to Foster Deep Gratitude (mindful.org)
Open yourself up to the benefits of gratitude with these guided meditations. A Loving-Kindness Practice to Foster Acceptance (3-minutes) Open the heart. A Guided Meditation for Resting in the Flow (19-minutes) Appreciate the moment. Gratitude Practice: Savor The Moment Savor the good. To access Nicole Bayes-Fleming's post with the three guided meditations, please click here.
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TIC Take Five: Navigating through Grief: Supports for Ourselves and Others
Here's another in a little series we're posting over on the Lancaster County (PA) ACES & Resilience Connection site to promote a regular practice to "take five" (minutes) for self-care. Sharing with the wider ACES Connection community in case it's helpful. Peace. Be well, everyone. In an article last week in Harvard Business Review, titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief”, grief expert David Kessler names the multiple types of losses we’re experiencing in the midst of the...
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TIC Take Five: Navigating through Grief: Supports for Ourselves and Others
Here's another in a little series we're posting over on the Lancaster County (PA) ACES & Resilience Connection site to promote a regular practice to "take five" (minutes) for self-care. Sharing with the wider ACES Connection community in case it's helpful. Peace. Be well, everyone. In an article last week in Harvard Business Review, titled “That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief”, grief expert David Kessler names the multiple types of losses we’re experiencing in the midst of 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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Trauma tried to kick down the door. Compassion is helping me heal.
The artwork is an original piece titled "Someone at the Door" by Chicago artist Ken Shaw. I bought it about 35 years ago. (The first part of this piece was written in-the-moment, as an email to a friend following what, for me, was a traumatic experience. The second part of this piece was written about 10 days later, as part of a healing reflection. It occurs to me that this experience, and the reflections, might help someone else experiencing trauma and/or seeking compassion for self or...
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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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What’s Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness? [Mindful Leader]
By David Treleaven A few months ago, a colleague who taught meditation in corporate settings asked for my advice. A woman in one of his programs had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and she was now experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress. When she’d meditate, images and sensations would flood her field of consciousness, leaving her more rattled than before. “Should I keep meditating?” she’d asked him. “I want to work with my stress, but practicing seems to be making things...
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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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Why It Pays to Fully Heal from Childhood Trauma [pro.psychcentral.com/exhausted-woman]
Janet reflected on the events of the past several days and instead of being embarrassed by her behavior, she was proud. She had purchased a new computer from a large retailer based on the specs and appearance. But when she began to use it, she discovered the store had done a bait and switch. They told her one thing about the product and sold her something completely different. After doing several rounds with their customer service and management department, she was told that the computer she...
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5 Tips to Get You Through the Kavanaugh Investigation (No Matter What Are Your Politics)
Current events this week are extremely triggering and traumatic for many. Here are a few tips from a trauma psychotherapist.
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6 Habits of Hope (dailygood.org)
If we are not present, we will not see what’s happening and therefore miss out on life. Conversely, whenever we pay attention, life reveals itself to us Being present also cultivates intrinsic hope because it gives us more choices about how to act and makes it more likely that our choices will be appropriate in the moment. Mindfulness Being present is not only about noticing what is happening in the external world; it is also about noticing what is happening in our minds. In fact, you can’t...
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8 Important Tools for Healing Trauma [thriveglobal.com]
Learning to understand your body and your inner emotional is the most valuable education you can receive. Healing is not about erasing what happened in the past, it is about finding the places the hurt got stuck, and loving that part of yourself so much it becomes free. I share with you today from what has worked for me personally in healing my own childhood trauma. Experiencing overwhelming events most often will later manifest at some point as ‘disease’, as we are often unable to cope in...
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A "Better Normal" Community Discussion - Trauma Sensitive Yoga for Embodiment and Agency
TCTSY (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga) is the practice of bringing our bodies into the present moment to integrate and recover from the harmful effects of adverse life experiences. This evidence-based method focuses on the felt sense of the body, also known as interoception. Exercising interoception helps inform one’s choice-making and allows participants to restore their connection of mind with body and cultivate a sense of agency that is often compromised as a result of trauma. Dion...
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A Day At a Time
We are not strangers to unusual challenges in the addiction’s world. We have lived with chaos and unmanageability before and we have learned to use program principals to create calm in a storm. We have also learned to accept and even embrace challenges as part of our spiritual growth. And we have found that embracing those challenges has ultimately led to our being happier, stronger and more resilient people. This current moment in time however, is giving “practicing these principles in all...
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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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Affirming Our Self-Love, Self-Acceptance, and Self-Worth
CRI hosted a training in Everett recently, focusing on the power of self-love and acceptance. As a branch of our Course Two material- CAREER, an acronym for Celebration, Affirmation, Regulation, Expectation, Education, and Education- we focused the day on Affirmation. Teri brought in arts and crafts, scrapbook paper, and our friends came to participate in making bookmarks. The day started with the song, "How Could Anyone" . How could anyone ever tell you You were anything less than beautiful...
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Bedtime Meditation for Parents and Kids (www.tenpercent.com)
Excerpts from a piece by Sumi Kim published in the Ten Percent Happier online newsletter. Click here to read the rest of this piece by S umi Kim published in the Ten Percent Happier online newsletter.
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Calming Your Anxious Mind Through Rhythmic Movement
5 Rhythmic Movement Practices That Can Calm Our Anxious Mind
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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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Coping Strategy: Smile
As we discussed the Seven Mindsets, I was reminded how I had made a concerted effort to change my thinking patterns and create new habits filled with positivity instead of focusing on the struggles when I first started out on my healing journey.
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Coronavirus Sanity Guide (FREE) (www.tenpercent.com)
My friend Lynn keeps sharing this guide on social media. While most of us are sharing news, and maybe panic, she is inviting her loved ones to find a bit of calm and comfort online. She said she likes the content and the app so I checked it out and there are free resources such as guided meditations, pre-recorded talks, and a daily live podcast at 3 p.m. EST. For the healthcare workers who are really stretched and stressed, there's free access to the 10% happier app. Here's an excerpt from...
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Donna Jackson Nakazawa on dislodging the trauma headspace & making micro-changes
Cissy's note: Two more posts from Donna Jackson Nakazawa's Facebook page posts which she has graciously allowed to be shared here on ACEs Connection . For more, read Donna Jackson Nakazawa's new book, The Angel and the Assassin: The Tiny Brain Cell that Changed the Course of Medicine and follow her on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram
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Erasing My ACES
Why I hid ACES from my medical records in order to receive equal treatment.
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From Compassion Fatigue to Healing Centered Engagement: Turning Trauma Informed Values into Action
To pave the way for a truly strengths-based approach to full healing and recovery for both service users and burned out staff, we must educate them on (1) the central role of primal body responses to trauma (past and present), and (2) the early development of adaptive thoughts and behaviors in response to
traumatic experience.
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Fuzzy Slippers: How Do Self-Care as a Trauma Survivor
When I recommend the need for self-care to trauma survivors, they say it can feel like a chore. Some of them even roll their eyes and tell me, “You mean you want me to take care of myself? Ugh. Who has time for that?!” It’s tempting for any person to undervalue self-care. But for trauma survivors, resistance to self-care has much deeper roots. Healing takes a focused, gentle approach. Self-Care as a Practice of Welcoming Your Needs Many trauma survivors learned to do without self-care...
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How Are You Feeling? Take a Minute to HALT for Your Health [goodtherapy.org]
Laura's Note: A common outcome of childhood trauma is disconnection with one's emotions and feelings and a tendency to minimize those emotions and feelings one does recognize. This article describes a simple way to recognize several types of feelings that demand our attention and care. How do you feel right now? Great? Okay? Not so good? If you aren’t feeling your best, taking a moment to HALT is one of the best things you can do for your overall mental and physical health. “Halt” translates...
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It Makes Sense
I felt inadequate and ill-prepared to speak to licensed mental health professionals about ACEs. But when I was asked to attend the 40th Annual Training Institute on Behavioral Health & Addictive Disorders in Clearwater, Florida to represent ACEs Connection, I was honored and eager. My background is in health planning, not mental or behavioral health. I review health data and look for gaps and inequities. My time is spent looking for and addressing the health needs of a community. So,...
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3 Steps Toward Managing And Healing Anxiety
I've struggled with anxiety throughout my life. A difficult childhood and my highly sensitive personality meant I grew into an anxious kid—there was just too much pain and emotional overwhelm for my young brain to handle. My anxiety most often manifested as perfectionism and people pleasing, so from the outside everything seemed great. I excelled in school and I was a good kid who did as she was told. But there was a war inside me. I felt broken, unable to navigate these huge feelings of...
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Mindfulness Stress Reduction Techniques for Healing
Whether you're healing from illness, trauma, or other difficult times, these mindfulness stress reduction techniques can support your healing.
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Neuroscience Reveals 50-Year-Olds Can Have the Brains of 25-Year-Olds If They Do This 1 Thing [Inc.]
Neuroscientist Sara Lazar, of Mass General and Harvard Medical School, started studying meditation by accident. She sustained running injuries training for the Boston Marathon, and her physical therapist told her to stretch. So Lazar took up yoga . "The yoga teacher made all sorts of claims, that yoga would increase your compassion and open your heart," said Lazar. "And I'd think, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm here to stretch.' But I started noticing that I was calmer. I was better able to handle...
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Preparing and Advocating for Medical Care as a Trauma Survivor
With all the health care changes and challenges in today’s society, going to the doctor or dentist is difficult enough for the average person. With a history of childhood or adolescent sexual trauma, a medical appointment can become re-traumatizing if not handled with care by the survivor and provider. Think about it, some other adult is making decisions on the survivor’s behalf, touching their body, has their hands in the survivor’s mouth rendering them unable to make their needs known or...
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Proof That Our Thoughts Create Reality (wakeup-world.com)
Water is the most common and arguably most mysterious substance on planet Earth. This substance is so incredible that we as humans through directed thoughts, can literally change the composition of water molecules themselves. You experience and project positive emotions such as love, happiness , and joy and water will literally change in its crystalline structure and become a much more healing and beneficial substance for your being and for the environment in general. This fascinating...
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Reasons to be Positive and Optimistic
Positive thinking and optimism are words often thrown around when thinking about being happy and cheerful. But what do they really mean? Positive thinking means approaching life in a positive and productive way instead of focusing on the negatives. Meaning you’re hopeful for the best and don’t focus on the worst. Sounds good in theory, but how can you start to think positively? Here are seven reasons why positivity is so good for you, and some tips on how to remain positive everyday:...
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Resensitization: Coming Back to Life after Trauma [goodtherapy.org]
Trauma dysregulates the body. It moves energy levels away from baseline to extremes of hyperarousal (“too much,” panic, overwhelm) and sometimes hypoarousal (“low,” lethargy, emptiness), not only alternating but sometimes getting stuck in either extreme. When we experience overwhelm in the body, one natural response to this dysregulation (and accompanying confusion or relational struggles) is to just get away—perhaps through drinking, sex, anxiety medication, working out, or power-watching...
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Resilience: A Conversation
Rebecca Lewis-Pankratz and I were having an exchange on social media about the word resilience. It went on and on. It lasted days. And days. It started on Twitter, moved to Facebook, and then crossed over to text messaging. There was no last word, no meet-in-the-middle moment or any kind of closure. Just confusion. Rebecca suggested we dive deeper, face to face, via a Zoom conversation to be shared on ACEs Connection. We wanted to know why some recoil at or reject the use (overuse) of the...
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Running on Empty: How to Manage Your Energy Levels After Trauma [goodtherapy.org]
Laura's Note: This article was published in 2012, but the topic and the information therein stands the test of time. All too often, compromised energy levels are a lingering impact of traumatic experiences, particularly ongoing or frequent traumatic events in childhood. Compromised energy means that you simply do not have enough energy to tackle certain tasks. In addition, traumatic experiences often prevent people from learning how to manage their energy levels. This encompasses everything...
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Science Says Happiness Can Change Your Brain [yesmagazine.com]
After 2,000 years of practice, Buddhist monks know that one secret to happiness is to put your mind to it. What is happiness, and how can we achieve it? Happiness can’t be reduced to a few agreeable sensations. Rather, it is a way of being and of experiencing the world—a profound fulfillment that suffuses every moment and endures despite inevitable setbacks. [For more on this story by Matthieu Ricard, go to...
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Self-Care, Boring Self-Care, And Just Showing Up [laurakhoudari.com]
What Is Self-Care Anyway? I spend a lot of time talking about “self-care,” particularly when I am advising my clients, colleagues, and loved ones to practice it. I tell people to take care of themselves or give specific instruction, to “eat,” “sleep,” or “get outside.” The more I preach the gospel of “self-care,” the more I feel inclined to explore the term itself and its history. Sometimes, what we, or our clients are already doing by “showing up”, is in itself all the self-care that can be...
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Self-Compassion Is Your Perfect Present Guidance, Even In The Most Troubled And Turbulent Of Times.
There is one sure form of guidance you can follow every moment of the day, even in today's most turbulent of times, to ensure that you follow the path in life that is truly right for you, truly good for you. The simple way of describing this form of guidance is: making self-loving or self-compassionate choices for yourself in the present moment . Be guided by your heart-sense regarding your every thought and action . When things don’t turn out the way you want them to, instead of blaming and...
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Set Conditions to Feel More Calm, Clear, and Open This Year - with LARLAR [jillianpransky.com]
I remember it like yesterday. It was January 1993, I was walking up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan when a small gold sign advertising a yoga studio caught my eye. I turned on a whim, went in, and some two hours later, found myself sobbing on my yoga mat. I knew I was tight from years of working out, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that under the tightness I’d lived with from pushing myself around — muscling through everything I encountered without taking a rest — was also a deep,...
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Settling In While Feeling Unsettled
How quickly the outside world has influenced our inner world and changed our thoughts, patterns, and triggers. Life is definitely coming in waves. We feel a sense of safety if we can be in a healthy home, fear and worry if we have to venture out for food, calm returns after we practice something that soothes and regulates us, and anxiety builds when we hear news and the impact the virus has on the whole world. We are beginning to expect and accept many unpredictable and unknown...
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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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Shattered By The Darkness: Powerful book by a humble man on a mission to prevent what happened to him from happening to other children.
Gregory Williams, PhD, will help change the world by taking this book into medical schools and teaching physicians and nurses about the root cause of most adult illness: childhood trauma. I just read this book in one sitting, save one hot tea refill. I could not stop reading it. Even though there were some passages that evoked anxiety, I couldn’t stop reading it, as I so wanted to learn more about this remarkable man and how he earned a PhD, had a normal family life, and earned the respect...
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Some Trauma Really is Unspeakable. So These Women are Sewing Their Stories, Instead [washingtonpost.com]
By Rachel A. Cohen, The Washington Post, November 27, 2019 A 16-year-old girl was abducted, raped, beaten and held captive for months in Congo. She became pregnant and gave birth. In an effort to avoid the stigma and shame that this would bring upon her family and because she would not be eligible for any other marriage, her parents joined the perpetrators’ family in trying to force her to marry her abductor. Although she was expected to obey, she refused. The perpetrator’s family took her...
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Supporting children in the struggle against COVID-19 on 3/24 (www.embracerace.org)
Excerpt from the founders of Embrace Race about the webinar tomorrow night from 8:30-9:30 pm ET (5:30-6:30 pm PST): Please go here, to register (free ) and to the E mbrace Race site for more about the organization.