“Your junk journal is a place just for you,” I tell my Junk Journaling for Resilience (JJ4R) students, “and every part of you belongs here.” This emphasis on building a place of self-belonging is vitally important when we engage in artistic practices as healing practices. In a sense, cultivating self-belonging is one of the key things that makes this JJ4R practice resilience-building.
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.
To make it through these times, personally and collectively, we need to connect with what brings us alive and delight in it. Come have weekly playdates with your Inner Artist. My Inner Artist can't wait to meet yours!
I believe that every one of us has an inner artist who knows exactly how to meet the times we are in and bring forth what we most need to see. I hope you can join me... I am eager to see what your inner artist wants to create!
I take all the "junk" in my head and heart, that jumble of unprocessed emotion and information, and pour it on the page, mix in some paint, collage paper and gel pens, and.....Ah, yes. The world is right again!
As I add layer upon layer in my Junk Journal, following that little bit of pleasure I get when gazing at a combination of colors, textures, shapes or words that feel just right to see... the ordinary space of the journal page starts to feel more and more like a sacred, healing place. Something takes over that is not my usual mind, with its usual ideas and opinions. It’s refreshing!
This is an activity that came to me during a time of incredible turmoil and hardship for my family, and it quickly became my go-to practice to shift out of fight-or-flight, gain perspective on my situation, find peace in the chaos, and sort through my many colliding thoughts and feelings about the impossible time we were in. It was how I metabolized, sifted, and found my right way through a significant family crisis. It honestly saved me/us, in part because it is so fun, easy and feels good!
“We believe in things like science ,” a client tells me after learning that I am an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ. I have been working with his family for three years and there has never been any indication that either this man or his wife think I am anything but very smart. In fact, they have often credited our work together with saving their family life and marriage! I do not take his statement as an insult, but rather, as evidence of the depth of religion’s wounding...
This is a love-offering from a highly trained trauma-coach, healer, and activist Victor Lee Lewis. (See Links below) My friend, mentor and colleague of 18 years, Victor Lee Lewis is offering a 90 minute online training for "Rapid Pain Relief" for individuals and healing professionals. The modality is called Emotional Freedom Technique (or tapping). He describes it as a highly effective, portable, simple way of activating one's own acupuncture meridians for rapid relief with gentle tapping...
I didn’t feel grateful. I felt lots of things about my parents, but aside from fleeting moments of acknowledgment--mostly about the substantial amount they were currently doing to help me, as a single mom, to raise my daughter--I didn’t really feel grateful to them for what they did back then when I was a tender little person in their care. No, about that, I mostly felt angry. And filled with grief.
The healing of trauma begins when the traumatized body can tell that it is safe. The body’s feeling of safety is not the same as the rational part of the brain thinking “I ought to feel safe now.” It’s also not the same thing as the rational part of the brain believing , “I feel safe now.” The body is safe when the reptilian part of the brain feels safe, and with it, the amygdala, and the limbic brain (which is connected to the reptilian brain through the amygdala). It takes practice for the...
Trigger alert: this article is about dismantling racism in white bodies. This is not to downplay that people of color have been and are the primary targets and survivors of racialized trauma. This article is an exploration into what it means as a white person to dissolve white supremacy inside my own white body, and what it might point to in terms of thawing white supremacy in our collective white bodies (churches, schools, communities). I am not new to conversations about race and racism.
Trauma: a story of hope Any story about healing trauma is a story of hope, and a story for all of us. Because we all carry trauma. Whether we think of ourselves this way or not. We know now that we all carry trauma because we know that trauma is transmitted intergenerationally . And we know that in the U.S., our country was built on--and continues to be sustained by--legacies of trauma : violence against Native Africans, violence against African Americans, violence against Latinos, violence...
Hello ACEs Connection colleagues! Are you aware of trauma informed providers in the San Francisco Bay Area who might be interested in being listed as a resource here? If so, can you please share this email with your colleagues? All my best, Angela Dear coach, therapist, body worker, activist, healer, program director, etc! Do you consider yourself a trauma-informed provider? Are you interested in being listed in a handout of Trauma Informed providers which will be handed out at the Oakland...
Dear AcesConnection community: Below is a note of invitation to trauma informed providers in the Bay Area from Ana Joanes, the creator of the documentary, Wrestling Ghosts. This is a film about a young mother healing from childhood trauma as she raises her young sons: it is heartwarming, inspiring, and serves to break the isolation around the struggles so many of us face when we parent with ACEs...
healing trauma is first and foremost about becoming an environment where healing happens which means, establishing safety nudging my nervous out of fight, flight, and freeze dropping away from unhelpful patterns such as "efforting" (or "avoiding") learning to notice, to allow, to rest to receive all the support being given right now: (this chair, this cool breath the soft hum of belonging to life) the body wants to heal mostly its about helping the mind to stop interrupting and get on board...
