Tagged With "Kankakee Iroquois Cares"
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A New Year's Thoughts
Wishing you a Happy New Year of Peace, Joy, Love, Hope & Healing. Take care, Michael. "JOY" - a song of thanks to all of those in my life - performed at the NYAPRS Conference 9/13 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4tWjowZVo “JOY”© Michael Skinner Music There’s joy in knowing what I have found There’s joy in knowing that I’m still around There’s joy in knowing that I still care Joy in knowing you’re still there Joy in knowing you’re still there I’m so glad you’re still around Thanks for...
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A song of acceptance
Hello my musical friends. A cover tune to share, a favorite of mine, a song of acceptance, for me, it asks the question, will you take me for who I am? For those who have encountered rough times in life, acceptance is not always part of the landscape. Take care, Michael. Live Performance of "If I Were A Carpenter" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLJzSKBvb2U
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ACEs Validated My Teaching Experience
When I first heard about the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study , it felt like a light bulb had actually gone on. Finally, FINALLY, someone was validating what I saw every single day teaching in East Oakland. For eight years, I taught at an elementary school in the most violent part of Oakland , the part that the police called the “Killing Zone.” The kids in my class had seen friends, neighbors, and family members shot or stabbed, and routinely hid in bathrooms and closets when gang fights...
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Anna, Age Eight: The data-driven prevention of childhood trauma and maltreatment
ENDING AN EPIDEMIC OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA REQUIRES COURAGE, COMPASSION AND A PLAN. ANNA, AGE EIGHT PROVIDES THE SOLUTION. NEW BOOK ANNA AGE EIGHT: THE DATA-DRIVEN PREVENTION OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA AND MALTREATMENT By Katherine Ortega Courtney, PhD and Dominic Cappello If one in eight children suffered from an unknown but debilitating virus, outrage would boil, editorials would harangue public officials, and agencies would mobilize to counter the threat. The CDC would scramble resources to develop...
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Author Hopes to Put Her Emotions Journals in the Hands of Girls in Every State
Back in the spring, I was in the middle of putting together a panel on community interventions for ACEs when the conference planning chair suggested adding Tara Shephard. We had an amazing panel that day, but Tara hit it out of the park. Her love and care for African-American girls in Arkansas and the adversities they face was apparent in every word she spoke that day. To give some background, Tara is an author, education and mental health advocate; an auditor for the American Correctional...
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Baylor College of Medicine students introduced to ACEs science
“I was one of those statistics that ACEs scientists and researchers talk about,” Dr. Gregory Williams, an administrator in the Baylor College of Medicine, told the school’s first-year class. Williams’ presentation about the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and his own experience as a trauma survivor, was organized by Dr. Reena Isaac of Texas Children’s Hospital for her class, "Hiding in Plain Sight: Understanding and Identifying Victims of Violence.” Williams regularly speaks...
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Best Selling Memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” tells an inspiring story of overcoming ACEs
In search of insight into the country’s stark cultural divides in preparation for a week of potentially difficult conversations in Kentucky where I’d be attending family reunion and 50-year high school reunion, I dove into “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance . Throughout this mesmerizing, painful, and hilarious memoir, I kept wondering if the author might know about the ACE study. The answer was found on page 226 when “ACEs” jumps out at me and...
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Books by Category
The following books have been recommended by ACEs Connection members. Categories (see below) Brain and Neurology Child Abuse Child and Human Development Children’s Books Depression Domestic Violence Foster Care Grief Law Enforcement and...
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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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Garbage Bag Suitcase-Available Now!
Plagued and embarrassed by my name, made worse by a nomadic childhood that made it impossible to build lasting relationships, I developed tough skin at an early age. Along the way I learned to deal with disappointment, push through discomfort,...
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Communities Creating Health
Communities Creating Health: What would happen if the design, implementation, and evaluation of health interventions became something we do with communities rather than to them? People want to lead satisfying lives, and that includes feeling well. Health as defined by medicine is only part of feeling well, and yet the overwhelming majority of our society’s health investments go to the health care sector for clinical services or public health interventions. While these services are important,...
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Director's Note about tonight's PBS broadcast of Broken Places (4//6)
The film trailer is available here. Learn more about Broken Places via this review written by @Laurie Udesky (ACEs Connection Staff) entitled, Documentary Broken Places uses archival footage to tell stories of ACEs and resilience over time . Tonight's Airing: Check your local listing time here. Film clips and more viewer information can be found on the PBS website .
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Dr. Claudia Gold: Empathy & Listening as ACE-Informed Practice
"You are absolutely not doomed from having ACEs."
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Healing ACE's
Healing Childhood Trauma I’d like to thank each member of ACE’s Connection for all your work helping and supporting children through various activities and organizations. You are clearly a collection of people who care about the children of the world. It is in recognition of these efforts that I ask you to consider two books on healing childhood trauma. They represent a life-time partnership dedicated to raising and educating healthy children. Secondly, I’d like to ask you for a word of...
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Healing Justice: Holistic Self-Care for Change Makers
Announcing the publication of a new book, Healing Justice: Holistic Self-Care for Change Makers , published this month by Oxford University Press. Here's a brief description: "In the context of global oppression, intergenerational trauma, burnout, and public services retrenchment, this book offers a framework, critical inquiries, case studies, and practices for social workers, counselors, activists, and other helping professionals. Drawing from the East-West modalities of mindfulness and...
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Healing the Wound That Won't Heal: the Reality of Trauma
“Healing the Wound That Won’t Heal: the Reality of Trauma.” In this book I share my in-depth work to understand the psychology and neurobiology regarding trauma and neglect in the first two years of life. My father was suffering extreme shell-shock due to his WWII mission to bomb the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. He was too ill to care for himself: yet, I was left with him everyday as my mother worked as a waitress. When I was thirteen-months-old, he died on the floor in front of my...
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Helping Children To Thrive Despite Early Struggles [AnnDouglas.net]
“The beauty of being human is that we constantly evolve and change. We have experiences every day that can alter the course of our lives to help us rebuild what was broken and rediscover what was lost. We, as humans, are never irreparably broken because our brains and bodies are built to change and adapt. And young children are often able to change more easily than the rest of us, when makes the earliest years of life the most full of hope. The key to that hope is in relationships.” - Sara...
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Her life changed when she focused on self-care. Now she's helping others do the same. (upworthy.com)
In 1996, Tomasa Macapinlac was in her early 30s, very successful, and working for one of the tech world's biggest companies. She was also extremely exhausted. No doubt, many Americans have felt these same burnout feelings, which can have real impacts on physical health. In fact, stressful jobs are a known cause of high blood pressure . Of course, everyone is different and self-care is going to vary from person to person. For some, it's about following a thorough daily routine. For others,...
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Hope Rising: How the Science of HOPE Can Change Your Life to be published Nov. 27, 2018
What if we all lived in a culture of hope? What if we all worked in a culture of hope? What if everyone dealing with childhood trauma, challenges and difficulties found a place where hope was so high that it invaded their lives as they soon as they arrived? What if our families had a culture of hope? What if every marriage had high hope?
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“If you think the system works, you’re dead wrong:” a discussion on mental health in California (calmatters.org)
A physician, an advocate, a public health specialist, a suicide-attempt survivor and a California state lawmaker gathered in downtown Sacramento today to offer their diagnosis of the state’s mental health system. The consensus was summed up by Sen. Jim Beall: “We need to start from scratch.” The panel discussion, hosted by CALmatters and the California Health Care Foundation, builds off an ongoing CALmatters reporting project by Jocelyn Wiener and Byrhonda Lyons on the state’s fragmented,...
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Improve Birth and Perinatal Outcomes with a Trauma Sensitive Approach
The Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health is excited to bring together 10 talented practitioners to explore the Trauma Informed Practices that help improve birth outcomes and support human development right from the very start. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (1998) launched the importance of trauma and trauma informed care in our health and educational systems. We suddenly had a measure of how early experiences in childhood could correlate with adult disease.
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Inflammation! Who knew???
I found this book through a side door. I have been looking for information to suppress inflammation,since my knees have been hurting more and less for twenty years. During an exam, my doctor said I had considerable crepitus...
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Interview with Hilary Jacobs Hendel
I first came across Hilary Jacobs Hendel’s work when I read a New York Times article in which Hendel, a practicing psychotherapist and writer, described the “Change Triangle,” an upside down triangle that explains how emotions work. The Change Triangle is also a roadmap that teaches us how we can use emotions as guides to both heal trauma and attain a more vital and calm state of being. As a follower of Hendel’s blog—and an avid user of the Change Triangle to understand my own inner...
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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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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 Language of Flowers
The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red r oses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a...
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The Relentless School Nurse: "Unless Someone Like you Cares a Whole Awful Lot, Nothing is Going to get Better. It's Not." - Dr. Seuss
The opening quote in Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha's gripping book, What The Eyes Don't See, struck me right in the heart: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." so says Dr. Suess. Caring is something that may be in short supply during our current political climate. Grappling with caring, too much or too little is worth a moment of self-reflection. We have to know what we care about, and lead with our "why," in order to make an impact. Dr. Mona...
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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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The Surviving Spirit Newsletter November 2019
Hi Folks, The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2019-11-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_November_2019.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us, Thanks! Michael. Healing the Heart Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse &...
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Thich Nhat Hanh answers children’s questions. "Is Nothing Something?" (lionsroar.com)
Children have a special place in the Plum Village tradition of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. There are special practices, vows, and programs designed especially for children and teens, and Thich Nhat Hanh often fashions the first part of his dharma talks with them in mind. He regularly takes questions from children, and by and large adults can identify with what they ask. Children may be smaller and younger and they may have a funny way with words, but their questions reveal that they,...
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Tiffany Haddish: "I Know What I'm Supposed To Do Here On This Earth" [npr.org]
Laura's note: I have not read this memoir ( The Last Black Unicorn , by Tiffany Haddish), so this post is not a book review. When I heard this author interviewed on NPR, though, I immediately recognized what she was describing as the theme of her new book: growing up with ACEs--and overcoming them through positive thinking to succeed as an actress, comedian, and now, an author. In the interview with David Greene, Haddish says it best: I hope a little girl or little boy reads this and be...
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Trauma-informed Healthcare Approaches: A Guide for Primary Care
Our recently published book, Trauma-informed Healthcare Approaches was written to share basic principles of trauma-informed care and ACEs science with general medical practitioners and administrators. As the recent #METOO movement has demonstrated, interpersonal trauma is widespread. A growing literature has demonstrated the impact of traumatic experiences on mental, physical health and wellbeing. Trauma survivors commonly access healthcare but their histories and needs are commonly...
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Trauma, Mindfulness and Neurobiology of Self (dvd video) 1 hour 20 minutes
This presentation by Jon Kabat-Zinn was excerpted from the 24th Annual International Trauma Conference held in Boston, MA. In recent years there has been increasing recognition of mindfulness and self-awareness as the foundations of emotional responsiveness, psychological change, and personal growth. This workshop highlights work that constitutes the cutting edge on the neurobiological foundations of stress resilience, mindfulness, the effects of trauma on self-awareness and...
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UPDATED Information Regarding Broken Places, Cracked Up, Paper Tigers & Resilience: Hosting a Film Screening to Start or Grow an ACEs Initiative: How-to Guide
Movie screenings of documentaries, such as Paper Tigers or Resilience are popular ways to introduce communities to ACEs science. Cissy White provides details about how to put on a screening event.
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What Happens When Old and Young Connect (dailygood.org)
This year, for the first time ever, the U.S. has more people over 60 than under 18. That milestone has brought with it little celebration. Indeed, there are abundant concerns that America will soon be awash in a gray wave, spelling increased health care costs for an aging population, greater housing and transportation needs, and fewer young workers contributing to Social Security. Some fear a generational conflict over shrinking resources, a looming tension between kids and “canes.” As I...
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What Happens When Old and Young Connect (dailygood.org)
This year, for the first time ever, the U.S. has more people over 60 than under 18. That milestone has brought with it little celebration. Indeed, there are abundant concerns that America will soon be awash in a gray wave, spelling increased health care costs for an aging population, greater housing and transportation needs, and fewer young workers contributing to Social Security. Some fear a generational conflict over shrinking resources, a looming tension between kids and “canes.” As I...
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Why I believe Gregory Williams, and his book, Shattered By The Darkness, will help save lives and revolutionize healthcare.
When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...
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Why Intentionally Building Empathy Is More Important Now Than Ever (kqed.org)
Those in helping professions like teaching, social work, or medicine can buffer themselves from burnout and “compassion fatigue” with self-care strategies, including meditation and social support . A study of nurses in acute mental health settings found staff support groups helped buffer the nurses, but only if they were structured to minimize negative communication and focused on talking about challenges in constructive ways. English Professor Cris Beam also studies empathy and wrote a book...
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Mistreated: Why we think we're getting good health care and why we usually are wrong. The connection to Adverse Childhood Events
Mistreated: Why we think we are getting good health care and why we usually are wrong and the connection to Adverse Childhood Events Over the past two years, I have written a column for Forbes. On several occasions, I have highlighted the medical consequences of Adverse Childhood Events (ACE's) and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). The data is clear. Both if not recognized and treated produce negative health care outcomes. Both are very prevalent and asking about each should be standard for...
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My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard
I’ve just finished reading the third volume of My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard, a Norwegian whose six-volume memoir recounts in minute detail his traumatic experiences as a child and later as a husband and father of four. The fourth volume...
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Nadine Burke Harris debuts "The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity" in Philadelphia
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris debuted her book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity , at the Philadelphia Free Library this evening in a talk and book signing. This first stop in an ambitious book tour that crisscrosses the country reflects a mission that Burke Harris has pursued for nearly a decade: to spread the knowledge about the science of adverse childhood experiences, and about how people can use this knowledge to help solve our most intractable problems.
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New film rethinking incarceration for women in Canada
A new documentary film has recently been released called Conviction. It is self-described as A COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTARY FILM THAT ENVISIONS ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON THROUGH THE EYES OF WOMEN BEHIND BARS
I've recently seen the film and highly recommend it. The content is Canadian, but no doubt the issues the women deal with are universal.
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New Intervention Fact Sheet: Parent-Child Care [nctsn.org]
A 7-page fact sheet describing Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) is now available. A dyadic psychotherapeutic intervention for enhancing the caregiver-child relationship and making behavior management more effective, PC-CARE combines teaching and coaching on how trauma exposure affects children’s mental health. Caregivers can be biological parents, relative caregivers, resource parents, grandparents, nannies, or anyone caring for a child. While caregivers play with the child, therapists coach...
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NEW MEMOIR BY A PSYCHOLOGIST WHO IS A SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR
Hello Friends, My name is Carolee Tran and I'm a psychologist who is a survivor of sexual abuse. I teach at UC Davis and also have a private practice in mid-town Sacramento. I specialize in the treatment of trauma. I am writing to announce the publication of my book “The Gifts of Adversity: Reflections of a Psychologist, Refugee, and Survivor of Sexual Abuse. ” I felt compelled to write this book to help others- refugees, sexual abuse, and trauma survivors. I also felt a deep sense of...
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Our Community Page Is Expanding!
As Oliver Wendell Homes once said, “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of bigger ideas, never returns to its original size.” I am so grateful to all of YOU for making ACEs Connection such a forward-thinking and vibrant site, and for the many ways it’s expanded my own mind to the “dimensions of bigger ideas.” That said, I’m so excited to introduce myself as the new community manager of “Books! Educational DVDs! Documentaries!” A little about myself: I’m a freelance writer and have...
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Parenting through the Storm Book Review
Parenting Through the Storm: Find Help, Hope, and Strength When Your Child Has Psychological Problems , is written by Ann Douglas. The author, a member of this group and network , has a warm, open and honest tone. She's a parent and gets that parents and kids are sometimes or even often scared, struggling and in crisis. She knows. She writes about the time she almost lost her daughter, thirteen at the time, to death by suicide. Her daughter was vomiting and sleeping, restlessly, all night...
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Profound Cascading Effects: Treating trauma in adolescents author is in Putney Sunday [
Trauma isn't always the result of one big bad terrible thing happening to a child that changes that child. In fact most trauma, is a day to day trickle. An accumulation of days bearing witness to domestic violence, of a steady cascade of insults, of the endless moments of neglect. "And this ends up being severe (trauma)," said, Martha "Marti" Strauss, of Brattleboro, a professor in the department of Clinical Psychology at Antioch University New England. "One event can lead to another. So you...
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Season's Greetings!
Hello everyone! My name is Jesus and I am a new Community Manager here ACEs Connection. It just so happens that this is one of the groups that I get to work closest with and I wanted to say HAPPY HOLIDAYS before I go on winter break until early...
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Self Care Via Nutrition - An Anti-Antidepressant Approach
Whilst I'm not promoting this book, I am trusting Chris Kresser, a 'functional nutritionist', in his 'endorsement' of Dr Kelly Brogan, to a degree at least. It was Chris Kresser who really started a conversation years ago about gut health, way before the mainstream medical cohort were embracing it. As to a Paleo diet, it's fraught with contentious toing and froing of its benefits, or lack thereof. Depends who you listen to! Chris Kresser seems to have a more nuanced approach to Paleo...
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Self-Compassion for Teens
With teens today facing unprecedented levels of toxic stress, self-compassion is one way to nurture inner wisdom, promote self-kindness, and self-heal. Christopher Germer, author of the Mindful Path to Self-Compassion says my forthcoming book, Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities & Practices to Cultivate Kindness is "just the ticket for parents, teachers, and counselors who know the burdens of modern teens and want to help." Tara Brach, author of True Refuge and Radical Acceptance...