I strive to make sure when I talk about resilience, I don't just focus on the personal but the societal responsibility. During this time, I have even more deeply recognized that my personal skills and resilience can be overwhelmed by "surge capacity" [a term from a recently shared article "Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful"]. As this article states: "I want people to be proud of themselves for being resilient. I just don’t want it to be the only option." Its...

This is hands down the most important thing we can listen to right now. https://onbeing.org/programs/resmaa-menakem-notice-the-rage-notice-the-silence/?fbclid=IwAR13yqTDbPAFdYjUVSJ_nXZukLs5xSBWCFKlRQCGmbdb0mJXyKyXUwpQqyk#reflections

"If we’re going to obsess about personal responsibility , let’s also have a conversation about social responsibility ." I think its important to recognize the limits of individual ability be resilient or to recover, even while we tout that it is possible. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/opinion/sunday/deaths-despair-poverty.html

How is the stress caused by Donald Trump and his right-wing movement negatively impacting the health and decision-making of the American people? In what ways has fear been weaponized by Trump and other authoritarians? If biology is connected to political behavior, where did all of these “new” authoritarians in America and elsewhere come from? How can we use our increasing knowledge about the human brain and stress to craft better public policy? How has research drawn from sociobiology and...

An important discussion about use and misuse of mindfulness. From the apps on our phones to the magazines at our grocery stores, we're inundated with tips on using "mindfulness" to reduce stress. But San Francisco State professor Ronald Purser argues that the mindfulness advertised is more like "McMindfulness": well-packaged, individualized complacency that preserves the status quo. Instead of linking our unhappiness to larger social structures, we identify it as self-imposed -- and are told...

One man's story of improving his mental and physical health with careful use of nutrition. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/06/04/future-of-food-as-medicine?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR00KriXrmSj1Q8Hb0eGYA8mIxwUR4t7AKmOwRcuBencwLfE_hFaIf7Cm_A

I am always pondering the tension between personal healing/resilience and social justice and my responsibility as a service provider. I think this article points out some important considerations: "There are also well-intentioned educators in schools across the country that are teaching mindfulness but lack any analysis of neoliberal reform in our education system. So they’re helping kids feel less anxiety about high-stakes tests without questioning the meaning and quality of those tests in...

Ina May Gaskin is often referred to as the “mother of modern midwifery.” But when Gaskin was asked at an April 22 birth seminar in Forth Worth, Texas, about the effects of systemic racism on high infant and maternal mortality, her response left many in the Black birthing community questioning her competence. “Drug overdoses, cause number three—that’s a biggie—and I presume these are illegal drugs. Not prescription drugs, but those are also going to be a problem,” said Gaskin, who then...

"Many Westerners, when they come to dharma practice, come looking for psychological healing—but this is not what meditation was designed to do. As meditation has become mainstream, it has been marketed as a way to address physical and emotional ailments as well as a way to improve performance at work, reduce stress, and rewire the brain. I’ve been a psychotherapist for nearly twenty-five years, working with meditators and non-meditators alike; I have also taught meditation in the Theravada...

Even though this writer doesn't talk about trauma, he gets to the core of what has been missing. Attention to a broader spectrum of people's core needs to include emotional ones. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/opinion/when-social-services-undermine-well-being.html?fbclid=IwAR2pytgMRtZvhHpCbFm4BWm12ZgRBYhNF5WtqX6IuSjrXeWLnsGYdlU99ew&smid=fb-nytopinion&smtyp=cur

https://missionlocal.org/2018/11/the-high-health-toll-of-sfs-relentless-rent-increases/?fbclid=IwAR2zD4M9xb7532rhLKKdcmoaLWJLaGWI9DlvNpP5s-xJQtF38wQ4DkuxTaU

http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/15/how-child-abuse-primes-the-brain-for-future-mental-illness/

This op-ed wisely recognizes that trauma and resulting mental illness is borne unevenly by different communities and that reducing stigma alone is not enough. "Suffering is compounded when the groups that are most in need of treatment for mental illness are the very groups who are less likely to receive it." ...

According to an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle , residential retreats aimed at developing leadership and empathy in high school students are using questionable methods such as asking participants to reenact racist behavior, shout degrading slurs at one another and divulge family trauma. While some students say the camp experiences are transformative, the investigation finds the teaching methods suspect, unethical and possibly harmful. A San Jose judge has now called for the Bay...

https://qz.com/1298387/brazils-wildly-ambitious-incredibly-precarious-program-to-visit-every-poor-mother-and-change-their-childrens-destiny/

http://www.chicagoreporter.com/trauma-of-witnessing-police-violence-is-not-lost-on-children/

The Chicago City Council Finance Committee today approved a $2.5 million settlement for a West Side family terrorized by Chicago Police in a precedent-setting, excessive force lawsuit charging CPD violated the family’s civil rights by breaking into their home, holding a loaded gun to the chest of a 3-year-old girl while she watched officers put a gun to her grandmother’s head and hit and shake and slam her handcuffed mother’s body against a wall. The full City Council is expected to approve...

I watched a few of the intro webinars to this course and it looks like a great training from the Center for Adolescent Studies. https://centerforadolescentstudies.com/bars/ 4-Weeks: May 29th - June 26th, 2018 (and a 2-week grace period to finish all lessons to get your certificate of completion) Online: Completely online; login whenever you want each week to access the course material (mostly video presentations, approx. 2 hours per week) Learn: Critical skills for building relationships...

Hello! I’m one of the Community Managers for the ACES and Nourishment Community on ACES Connection. Along with my co-manager, Adrienne Markworth, I am excited to launch this community where anyone can share research, articles, stories and ideas about the connections between food, eating, nutrition, obesity and ACES. As many of you know, the foundational ACES research emerged from an investigation into why participants in an obesity program were dropping out despite initially losing weight.

A big NY Times story about a talented young woman who ended up schizophrenic and homeless. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/nyregion/nyc-homeless-nakesha-mental-illness.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=nytmm_FadingSlideShow_item&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news Buried in the article is that she was repeatedly sexually abused as a child. But the bulk of the article is about people trying to help her. Not much mentioned about...

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/16/536935957/stress-and-poverty-may-explain-high-rates-of-dementia-in-african-americans