Tagged With "Calm the Storm with Heart Breath"
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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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Trigger Season (www.lilacsinoctober.wordpress.com)
Beautiful writing from Arwen Faulkner . For survivors of adversity, there's no way to trigger proof life. Fall doesn't come with a warning. Trauma and adversity change the way we experience ourselves and the world, maybe how we sleep or don't sleep and how we function or struggle to function. While parenting or working or breathing. Certain days or entire seasons. Some mornings. Some nights. Every night at certain times. I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. On the wrong side of myself. I...
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Troubled moms and dads learn how to parent with ACEs
A father in county jail is ordered to take a parenting class, but isn’t too enthusiastic about it. As part of the class, he learns about the ACE Study, and does his own ACE score. “Oh my god!” he announces to the class. “I have 7 ACEs.” His mother’s an alcoholic. His dad’s been in and out of jail. He himself started dealing drugs at age 11, and doing drugs at 14. “I’ve got two kids at home experiencing the same things I did,” he says. The light bulb goes on. A few days after a woman who’s...
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U.S. Maternity Leave Policies Aren’t Just Inadequate, They’re Unequal Too [WomensNews.org]
Around 10:30 one night, I walked across the emergency department to see my next patient, a woman who’d had a panic attack. I took a deep breath before turning the corner, partly because you never know what you’ll see next, and partly because I was three months pregnant and a little queasy. I found a worried looking young woman with an eight-month baby bump. “Hi, doctor” she said. “I’m sorry about this. My boyfriend lost his job and I got overwhelmed.” [For more of this story, written by...
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Understanding This Theory is Essential to Being Trauma-Informed
My typically happy, well-adjusted 11-year old daughter was having a melt downs of all melt downs. She was crying hysterically. I could hear her wailing downstairs as she was upstairs. I could feel my heart rate rising as her distress increased. I called up to my husband; “What is going on with Hannah?” Granted, the night before was a late Halloween night fueled by massive amounts of sugar. That right there renders a dire state in the body – little sleep, ample sugar. My gut twisted as I...
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Unity Radio - ALL NEW Talking Wellness. Today's special guest is Michael Skinner
Unity Radio WUTY 97.9FM Worcester, MA ALL NEW Talking Wellness with Mike MacInnis. Today's special guest is Michael Skinner I'm particularly proud and happy about yesterday's "Talking Wellness" episode. Michael Skinner was a trailblazer in trauma informed peer support work, getting it done before people even knew it was a thing. A class act and genuine good guy. Definitely give this show a listen!
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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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Webinar: Cultivating Our Best Selves in Response to COVID-19 | Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT
How to use the skills of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM) for self and others to be the calm in the storm as we face the unknown. Free Webinar Tuesday, March 17 at Noon PDT Speakers: Elaine Miller-Karas, LCSW Linda Grabbe, PhD, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC Zoom Webinar Registration Link: https://zoom.us/j/715837300 Additional ways to join are listed at the bottom of this post. About the webinar leaders: Elaine Miller-Karas is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Trauma Resource Institute and...
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WEBINAR: Fostering Equity: Creating Shared Understanding for Building Community Resilience
Struggling with how to Foster Equity Conversations in Community? Join the national partners of the Building Community Resilience Networks as we share our lessons learned in fostering equity as a strategy to prevent childhood adversity and build community resilience. Wednesday, February 26th 12pm-1:15pm Eastern More info at go.gwu.edu/EquityWebinar As a nation we have agonized over how to approach conversations on race, racism, inequity and racial justice. Too often we have opted to attempt...
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Webinar Slides and Recording: Building Resilient Communities with Elaine Miller-Karas
Recorded live August 8, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The 1 hour video recording can be found on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/BUyY0FMjv8s Speaker: Elaine Miller-Karas, MSW, LCSW, Executive Director and Co-founder, Trauma Resource Institute. Host: Carey Sipp, Southeast Community Facilitator, ACEs Connection. Webinar Description: This webinar will explore integrating a biological based model to reduce the impacts of toxic stress for children and adults. It is a model both for...
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What If I Told You?
What if I told you that I was a victim of child sex abuse? As a survivor of child sexual abuse , I have a clear understanding of the importance of addressing stigma and shame as it pertains to sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Victims, especially young children, often do not disclose sexual abuse. Those who are witnesses of child sexual abuse, or who are trusted by survivors enough that they confide in them, are often ill-equipped to handle the responsibility. And, many times, parents...
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What is Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD)?
Most people have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder that afflicts many men and women returning from a war zone. It is characterized by flashbacks, unstable moods, and survivor’s remorse. However, many have never heard of a condition that often develops in childhood and changes the course of the child’s life forever, complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD). For a good definition of CPTSD, we turned to Beauty After Bruises, an organization that offers outreach focused on adult...
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What Nobody Tells You About Parenting A Child With A History Of Extreme Trauma (www.huffingtonpost.com) & Commentary
Thank you to ACEs Connection member @Emily Read Daniels for sharing this essay written by Chris Prange-Morgan . It's a great read even if you are not a parent, have never adopted, or worked with families formed through adoption who deal with the complications of trauma and loss. I love this piece for so many reasons. I t's beautiful and heart-opening personal memoir. It's honest about parenting, still a rare thing. It speaks about the difference between studying trauma and living...
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What's Right with US!
Thoughts on the shift from, "What's wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?" Dear Monadnock Thrives & ACEs Connection: I have to admit, it has taken me some time to understand the value of shifting from, “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” As a person with high ACEs, I realize I have been absolutely conditioned by our culture to resist the victim label (I resist thinking about what happened to me) and to ‘own’ my response to whatever has happened to me (I must pursue...
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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...
Ask the Community
We are the We
Cissy White and I were talking about the Parenting with ACEs (this group as well as the process of parenting with ACEs). We got animated, excited and went on and on and on (as we often do when we get to talking!) We decided to write a joint blog post to tell you about our conversation and ask you to weigh in on what you want. Read on our attempt at a combined post: Gail's voice - I called to ask if Cissy thought there was need for a place on the Parenting with ACEs group site for parents to...
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She Hoped to Shine a Light on Maternal Mortality Among Native Americans. Instead, She Became a Statistic of It. [nbcnews.com]
By Elizabeth Chuck and Haimy Assefa, NBC News, February 8, 2020 The twins were scheduled to be delivered on Aug. 21, 2019, and Stephanie Snook was nervous. Her pregnancy had not been planned. Snook was born with a heart condition; after her first two children, she had been told getting pregnant again could put too much stress on her heart. Nonetheless, Snook, 37, a warehouse clerk in food services at the Seattle Mariners’ ballpark, trusted she was in good hands. [ Please click here to read...
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Sherman Alexie’s incredible openness in two articles & audios (www.KUOW.org) & Commentary
"It all blends together. It's the way in which cruelty can be everyday ordinary to spectacular - but that it's a constant possibility. So that her unpredictable nature, her amazing beauty, and magic combined with her ability to be so mean." Sherman Alexie These articles , Facebook posts and audio clips and interviews with Sherman Alexie are so moving, beautiful and painful. It's like poetry, song, prayer or listening to birds in the trees. I may not get every message being shared but can...
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Show & Tell
Show don't tell is the first bit of advice almost every writer gets. Don't give facts if words can form an image. Don't say a song was fast-paced if words can tap quickly, instead, across the page. It's good advice but when it comes to ACEs we need both. We need to tell and show and tell again. There's resistance to telling. We need facts and data and proof. And we need stories. Both. Over and over and over. So the facts come with faces. So the data is as pressing as a poem. I can write...
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Some Thoughts on Oprah (www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org)
Laura Dennis wrote about why so many adoptive parents, as well as teachers, survivors, and advocates, were glued to the TV last night. Here's an excerpt:
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Spokane, WA, public health nurses create trauma-sensitive toolkit for parents/caregivers
Public health nurses at Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) developed a 178-page toolkit -- 1*2*3 Care -- for caregivers of children. They define caregivers as parents, g randparents, child care providers, teachers, and others who care...
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Standing Strong – The knowledge, skills and peer support parents need to lead (www.risemagazine.org)
Cissy's note: I admire the work of this parent-led and parent-focused organization. I read everything they post. For those not familiar with what they do, this is a recent interview with three staffers and gives a really good look at what and how they work to support families and make systems change. Here's an excerpt. The full piece is here. To read more of this piece recently published in Rise Magazine, go here.
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Stopping the cycle [TheLundReport.org]
Drs. Teri Petterson and R.J. Gillespie, who led integration of ACEs into pediatric practice in Portland ______________________________ PORTLAND – R.J. Gillespie, M.D., and his team are working with parents at The Children’s Clinic to interrupt the cycle of adverse childhood experiences. Health System Transformation (HST) makes this project possible – and makes preventive and lifelong health priorities, by doing things differently and promoting local innovation. It’s...
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Strengthening Families: Increasing positive outcomes for children and families [www.cssp.org]
We engage families, programs, and communities in building key protective factors. Children are more likely to thrive when their families have the support they need. By focusing on the five universal family strengths identified in the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework , community leaders and service providers can better engage, support, and partner with parents in order to achieve the best outcomes for kids. How We Do It The Strengthening Families framework is a...
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Strengths-Based Parenting Guides from Yolo County Children's Alliance
Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) parenting guides promote positive parenting skills and strengthen protective factors that have been identified to reduce the likelihood of child abuse and neglect. All three YCCA guides are available in English, Spanish, and Russian on our website: www.yolokids.org/forfamilies . Each guide also has a Conversation Starters for Providers , which can be found at https://www.yolokids.org/providers-guides . Below please find more information about each...
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Study: Stress Disorders Linked to Greater Infection Risk [mercurynews.com]
By Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, October 31, 2019 People who have stress disorders like PTSD may be more vulnerable to potentially life-threatening infections, especially if they are diagnosed at younger ages or dealing with other psychiatric issues, a recent study suggests. Researchers examined data on 144,919 people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), adjustment disorders common after a major life change like a death or move, and other stress-related conditions. They also...
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Substance Use Disorder and Brain Development
The inputs a brain experiences during its developmental stages have a profound impact on whether that person will develop a substance use disorder (if they choose to drink or use other drugs). In turn, developing a substance use disorder (SUD) as a tween, teen, or young adult dramatically influences that person's brain development. And why is understanding this causality important? The risk factors for developing a substance use disorder are the result of inputs the brain experiences (or...
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Talking to kids about coronavirus [spencerdailyreporter.com]
By Dana Larsen, The Daily Reporter, March 22, 2020 STORM LAKE ― Stressful situations often cause kids to worry, even if they don’t show it. They will have questions about the changes taking place in their world. A confident and calm approach to coronavirus will help ease kids’ worries and make them feel secure, says Pam Bogue of Buena Vista County Public Health. “We know traumatic things do affect them ― and this could be a trauma especially if children see parents having issues coping with...
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Taming the Dragons: Helping Children Cope: Ages Birth to Twelve Years
Taming the Dragons is a training manual for parents, foster parents, and kinship caregivers. It was developed out of a crisis nursery in WA state by Sue Delucchi. English and Spanish versions attached here for free downloads.
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Tending to Yourself When There’s No Time [blogs.psychcentral.com]
You yearn to be productive, to blast through your to-do list every single day. You experiment with all sorts of hacks to attain the ultimate efficiency. If you have kids, you take advantage of their nap time, folding, preparing, putting things back, emailing, writing, working, running. There’s so much running. No wonder you often end your day feeling out of breath (and out of it). You yearn to have a tidy house, where every item has a home, and there aren’t piles of unpaid bills on the...
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The Absence of Punishment in Our Schools
Where to begin... My heart is full of hope and joy as I watch the trauma-informed schools movement swell across our nation and planet. The science of ACEs is mind-bending to say the least and we are now able to open up a much deeper dialogue about human behavior and health. Ultimately this work is about healing… All. Of. Us. A new consciousness is taking root around ending the “us vs them” construct. The idea is growing that we’re all on this journey together and that no matter where our...
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Echo Parenting to incorporate ACEs into parenting classes
By Jessica LeTarte, Echo Parenting In an effort to bring the best information and tools to our participants, Echo will be introducing the Adverse Childhood Experiences ( ACEs ) survey and a corresponding resiliency survey into our parenting ...
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The Boy Born Out of Resilience
A few months ago I published a blog, " A Mother's Rage". I re-accounted my rage and helplessness regarding my daughter's high school rape in Miami, FL. I ended my post with words of hope. I wrote how several years had passed since my daughter's assault. She was now engaged and pregnant with my first grandchild. This is the rest of the story. I held my daughter's hand as she labored through the night with my grandson. I tried to comfort her fiancee who felt helpless. I rubbed her back,...
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Reimbursement for Parenting Education and Support Services
Unfortunately, regardless of training received and degrees earned, parenting educators can't serve families and get reimbursed by public and private insurers for their services. In an effort to bring light to this issue, I wrote the attached paper with two colleagues at NC State. Our (unpublished) paper outlines research supporting parenting education services and their efficacy to improve individual and family health and long term wellbeing and community prosperity. We highlight the fact...
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Reminder: Live Chat with Donna Jackson Nakazawa
"It's really not survival of the fittest - it's survival of the nurtured." Donna Jackson Nakazawa Date: Tuesday, November 14th, 2017 Time: 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST Where: Here / Chats ( featured chat ) Hosted by: @Jane Stevens Topics to be Covered: Parenting with ACEs. What parents need to know. Affordable self-care for stressed and busy parents. Healing from ACEs & family wellness. How to Attend Online Chats: M embers of ACEs Connection : Go to Chats (top of page). Find...
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[Repost] Trauma-informed Care: It Takes More Than a Clipboard and a Questionnaire
California is about to launch an ambitious campaign to train tens of thousands of Medi-Cal providers to screen children and adults up to age 65 for trauma, starting on January 1, 2020. It is well-established that the early identification of trauma and providing the appropriate treatment are critical tools for reducing long-term health care costs for both children and adults. Research has shown that individuals who experienced a high number of traumatic childhood events are likely to die...
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Resource List -- Professional Development
Professional development opportunities for parent educators/trainers/staff that incorporate NEAR research (Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACEs, and Resilience). Echo Parenting and Education Nonviolent child raising seeks to eradicate early family violence in the common practices of spanking (60% of American toddlers are spanked), bribes, threats, name calling, shaming, manipulation, being untruthful or praise and rewards. This view moves beyond the current legal definition of child abuse and...
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RESOURCE: Parent guide information
Please share the with the families you serve the attached a 2-page document for parents and caregivers about the parent guides that Yolo County Children's Alliance has produced as a project of the Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC). All of the guides are available at www.yolokids.org/forfamilies . There are some hard copies of the following guides and we would love for them to get into the hands of parents. Please let me know if you would like some of these materials!
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Review of Wrestling Ghosts (Documentary About Breaking the Cycle of Trauma) & Tickets
Cissy's Note: This post below with an offer for some free tickets to see Wrestling Ghosts was shared in the Parenting with ACE s community, thanks to @Charlotte Graham! However, I know many care about parents, parenting with ACEs who are on the main page so I'm sharing here as well with my review of this movie. I saw it last week and IT IS SO POWERFUL!!!! This documentary is so honest, raw, real, and powerful. It made me sad, hopeful, heartbroken, and encouraged all at the same...
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SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach
Years in the making, this important piece of the trauma-informed pie is on the table! Check it out.
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Science Says Silence Is Much More Important To Our Brains Than We Think (lifehack.org)
A 2013 study on mice published in the journal Brain, Structure and Function used differed types of noise and silence and monitored the effect the sound and silence had on the brains of the mice. [1] The silence was intended to be the control in the study but what they found was surprising. The scientists discovered that when the mice were exposed to two hours of silence per day they developed new cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region of the brain associated with memory,...
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Self-Care Is a Vital Part of the Healing Journey
Focusing on your health is important as you heal after trauma. I had learned a lot about trauma. I understood the impact but having been fortunate with a healthy body, the long term impact had not showed up in my biology except for very painful migraine headaches and depression. But the toxic level of stress I had lived with my whole life had not registered yet. Back then, my self-care mostly consisted of numbing the pain. It just hurt too much to think about it. I was in too much pain and...
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Sesame Street Resources for Families Coping After Natural Disasters
In the aftermath of recent hurricanes and wildfires, the Sesame Street in Communities team wanted to reach out to provide information on our available resources to help families cope in the aftermath of natural disasters, and other traumatic experiences. Bilingual videos, articles, printables and more, are all available for free on our website at www.sesamestreetincommunities.org . Here are the links to a few topic pages that may be most useful to you as you work with families in the...
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Sesame Street Resources for Families Coping After Natural Disasters
In the aftermath of recent hurricanes and wildfires, the Sesame Street in Communities team wanted to reach out to provide information on our available resources to help families cope in the aftermath of natural disasters, and other traumatic experiences. Bilingual videos, articles, printables and more, are all available for free on our website at www.sesamestreetincommunities.org . Here are the links to a few topic pages that may be most useful to you as you work with families in the...
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Latest ACEs science research from PubMed, February 12, 2019
Hair cortisol in the perinatal period mediates associations between maternal adversity and disrupted maternal interaction in early infancy. Nyström-Hansen M, Andersen MS, Khoury JE, Davidsen K, Gumley A, Lyons-Ruth K, MacBeth A, Harder S. Dev Psychobiol . 2019 Feb 12. doi: 10.1002/dev.21833. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 30747450 elect item 3074 Child maltreatment is mediating long-term consequences of household dysfunction in a population representative sample. Clemens V, Berthold O, Witt A,...
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Limbic Revision – Love Heals Your Traumatized Brain
Limbic revision is simply another name for revising and rewiring the faulty development of our brain, namely our limbic system. In simple terms in order to truly heal we need to experience deep and attuned loving care.
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Making the Good Stuff Louder: Trauma Dad, Bryon Hamel
Byron Hamel, (AKA Trauma Dad ), is a filmmaker , children's rights and men's wellness advocate. He's also a father with "ACEs through the roof," who survived child torture at the hands of a man now on death row for infanticide. Before the Father & ACEs chat started last week (see full chat transcript ), we discussed if and how to give a trigger warning. Hamel's experienced horrific trauma during childhood. He didn't want to traumatize those on the chat but wanted to be honest.
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Melt the Grumpy [PESI]
I loved this short tutorial about a quick somatic activity to release tension or "melt the grumpy" as the title says. "Melt the Grumpy" is a somatic activity to help shift your emotional state with physical movement, breathing and imagery. When you are feeling irritable, or just not happy, swing both of your arms at thigh level one side to the other across your midline. This motion helps break up postural patterns and muscular tension. Using the momentum of swinging your arms with trunk...
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Michael Skinner, live performance @ Survivor Knights 3-24-19 video 1
Michael Skinner, live performance @ Survivor Knights 3-24-19 video 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1J7llqObqw&feature=youtu.be Live performance of "Pirates" and "When Your Heart Follows A Lie", brand new tune!! for the Survivor Knights Event @ The Rotunda, Philadelphia PA March 2019 More info @ http://www.mskinnermusic.com/home/music/album-pirates/ & http://www.mskinnermusic.com/home/