Tagged With "Healing trauma"
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How Adverse Childhood Experiences Affect You as an Adult [psychologytoday.com]
What are adverse childhood experiences and how do they impact us later in life? In California, where I live and work as a sex and intimacy disorders specialist, there is a movement for mandatory adverse childhood experiences (ACES) assessment in all public and private medical and psychotherapeutic settings. So, regardless of an adult patient’s presenting issue(s) – medical, psychological, or both – clinicians would screen for childhood trauma. The reason for this push, which I strongly...
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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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How do you cope? Self-regulation "favorites" from our children! (video)
In a recent chapel time, our children were given the opportunity to "pay if forward" by helping create the video below. You see, part of the lesson was about thanksgiving and generosity, and that generosity is NOT just about sharing money. It's about being the type of people who share compassion and the wisdom that has been gained through difficulty. The children were encouraged to know that they could help other children handle their big feelings in healthy ways by sharing what they had...
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How Making Music Can Help Students Cope with Trauma [KQED News]
By Juli Fraga, MindShift Podcast, KQED News, July 15, 2019 Studies about the Ten Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) have shown that most people have experienced one of these traumas in childhood, such as being abused, having a parent who is incarcerated, experiencing homelessness, among others. The trauma one experiences in childhood can affect adult mental and physical health in later years, especially if a person has multiple ACEs. While the harm can have lasting impacts, health...
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How shallow breathing affects your whole body [headspace.com]
Laura's note: Many factors can contribute to a tendency to breathe shallowly, including childhood trauma. When your central nervous system has been stuck on constant alert for years--maybe even a lifetime--holding oneself in a way that restricts complete inhalations and exhalations comes with the territory. Many of us have a very hard time relaxing and letting go in a way that allows our breath to occur the way it is designed to for optimal health. And if on top of it you aren't aware of the...
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How Therapy Helps You Recover from Childhood Trauma and Abuse [talkspace.com]
If you experienced trauma or abuse during childhood, you might wonder if you should seek therapy . But maybe you are too busy to commute to appointments. You don’t even have any time to feel everything, much less talk about it. Then there are the plethora of worries people sometimes have when they consider working with a therapist. You might think, “What if I end up feeling worse? What if the therapist thinks I don’t have any problems? Am I exaggerating my experiences?” Then you start...
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How this Indigenous health researcher confronted trauma head-on, including her own [newsroom.unsw.edu.au]
By Adam Phelan, UNSW Newsroom, March 16, 2020 When Dr Eades’ sister fell ill, she knew she needed to do something. As a proud Noongar woman from Western Australia, a registered nurse, and a health researcher, she saw there was a missing piece of the puzzle in Aboriginal women’s health research. Dr Eades, a UNSW Scientia Fellow, became determined to examine a reality that was often left untold. “I had seen it in my own life, of how Aboriginal women often pick up the pieces for society,” she...
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How to Be More Resilient [nytimes.com]
As a psychiatrist, I’ve long wondered why some people get ill in the face of stress and adversity — either mentally or physically — while others rarely succumb. We know, for example, that not everyone gets PTSD after exposure to extreme trauma, while some people get disabling depression with minimal or no stress. Likewise, we know that chronic stress can contribute to physical conditions like heart disease and stroke in some people, while others emerge unscathed. What makes people resilient,...
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How to Deal With Childhood Trauma and Build More Meaningful Adult Relationships [scmp.com]
By Luisa Tam, South China Morning Post, October 27, 2019 Unresolved childhood issues that often lie dormant for years can suddenly come flooding back. Not only can this be painful for the individual, but it can hurt our relationships with other people, especially romantic ones. They say a difficult childhood can have many lifelong negative effects, such as the inability to form meaningful and long-lasting relationships, build trust, or intimacy with another person. We all desire love and...
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How to Heal Emotional Trauma (wakeup-world.com)
Understanding Emotional Wounds We tend to think of an emotional wound as the original traumatic experience – as the “thing” that happened to us, but the wound is actually the dis-empowering belief that we developed as a result of the traumatic experience. In the search for emotional security, our natural response to any traumatic event is to make sense of it. We “make sense”of things by creating beliefs. Beliefs that we develop in response to traumatic experiences are Traumatic Beliefs.
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How To Prepare For A Trauma Anniversary, According To Mental Health Experts [bustle.com]
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be a challenging mental health issue to manage, especially considering it's unique to each and every individual. However, a common trigger for many people with PTSD is their “trauma anniversary,” or the date that a traumatic incident or event occurred. In fact, a trauma anniversary (and the weeks leading up to it) can be one of the most difficult times during the year for people who live with PTSD. Fortunately, mental health experts say there are ways...
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How to Soothe Our Inner Wounded Child
Hi ACEs Connection Community, I am a staff member here at ACEs Connection. I have been hosting mental health tools for personal wellness each evening for the past 2 weeks since we've had to start sheltering in place and isolating. Note: These videos are a personal project and not done on behalf of ACEs Connection. The ideas are not officially endorsed by ACEs Connection, although I reference ACEs science. In this video, I talk about why childhood wounds may be triggered during this...
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How Trauma Therapy Cultivated My Recovery
I was 5 years old when I had my first encounter with trauma. Too young to comprehend the magnitude of the situation, my first grade class participated in a “Good Touch/Bad Touch” workshop,centered around educating and recognizing signs of sexual abuse. I found relief in finding a safe place to lay down the burden I had been carrying. I went straight to the school counselor and told her, in vivid description, the intimate details of my unwarranted molestation. I remember the grueling...
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How unprocessed trauma is stored in the body [medium.com/@biobeats]
When all is well, our brain is the greatest supercomputer on earth. A complex network of about 100 billion neurons, it’s not only great at processing and organising information — it’s really, really fast. Every second, somewhere between 18 and 640 trillion electric pulses are zipping through your brain. This matrix carefully encodes and stores your memories and experiences, collectively making up the unique mosaic of you. But what happens when a shock disrupts this system? And why is it that...
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Hugs & Conflict
A recent study found that “individuals who engage more frequently in interpersonal touch enjoy better physical and psychological health and improved relationships.” This is helpful for understanding just how important physical contact is with regards to human interaction. By beginning to establish the effects of touch on individuals going though conflict, these researchers have laid the foundation for a further discussion of how physical contact affects individuals who have experienced...
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I Experienced Trauma — Here Are The Wellness Practices I Rely On To Cope [mindbodygreen.com]
Fully outside of political persuasions, the trial last week left countless women around the world triggered. I was one of them. After experiencing sexual abuse as a child, I shared my story for the first time as a young teenager and began what would become a long journey to healing. I tried everything from EMDR to trauma-informed dialectical behavioral therapy to mindfulness practices. I began a yoga and meditation practice in hopes of reconnecting with my body, inner child and self-worth.
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“I Like to Move It, Move It!” – How Dance and Rhythm Can Reduce the Impact of ACEs (stresshealth.org)
As it is, more and more researchers studying the healing power of rhythmic movement on people who’ve experienced trauma from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, or parental mental illness or substance abuse issues. Among these researchers is Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist and senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy in Houston who advocates dance, drumming, walking and other rhythm-based movements to help kids with trauma. In a book about trauma and the power of...
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I Now Suspect the Vagus Nerve Is the Key to Well-being [thecut.com]
Laura's Note: I have no research citation to back this up, but I have a hunch that childhood trauma may do a number on the vagus nerve, at least in some of us. Isn't it reassuring to know that we can help stimulate our vagus nerves through simple, free or inexpensive methods such as deep breathing and yoga (both of which get a lot of good press in this community, and for good reason)? It's no panacea, but it's not nothing. Have you ever read something a million times only to one day, for no...
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In honour of my Dad, Remembrance Day 2019
War is most certainly Hell. It is also a source of #ACEs for the children of veterans. Here's a little insight into my story.
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Inside the ACE Score Strengths Limitations and Misapplications with Dr. Robert Anda (www.YouTube.com) & Note
Cissy's note: Thanks to @Elizabeth Perry for flagging me and letting me know about this important YouTube video posted on April 6th via the ACE Interface Laura Porter channel which furthers this important discussion about the uses/misuses of ACEs scores. This topic is written about from a personal perspective by @Sirena Wheeler here, yesterday, on ACEs Connection a piece entitled Erasing My ACEs which @Laura Porter commented upon. I have found tremendous benefit from learning about ACEs...
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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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Junk Journaling for Resilience (During COVID-19)
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!
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Keeping Childhood Trauma A Secret? That Can Lead To Psychological Problems [sandracohenphd.com]
You’ve kept your childhood trauma a secret out of shame and fear. There was no one safe to tell. Now, you don’t know who you can trust. If you open up, you’re afraid of being judged or punished. It’s a lonely way to live. Childhood trauma is devastating, no matter what form it takes. It affects your self-esteem, trust, future relationships, and sense of safety in the world. And, no matter what you do to forget, the secrets haunt you every day. You know some of the reasons you’ve kept...
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Kids From Trauma NEED Someone to Tell Them Their Normal Isn’t “Normal” [blogs.psychcentral.com]
Laura's note: As the first paragraph of the following blog post excerpt implies, a lot of adults need someone to tell them their "normal" isn't "normal" too. If it's all you've ever known and you're surrounded by friends and family who've had similarly unhealthy early experiences, how would you know otherwise? It took me a quarter of a century (literally) to realize that I experienced trauma throughout certain points in my childhood. It took me another year to realize that my behaviors were...
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Laziness Does Not Exist [medium.com/@dr_eprice]
Laura's note: Though this blog post focuses on perceived laziness in students, I think what E. Price has to say here could apply to other characteristics that are common symptoms and outcomes of early trauma in children and of a history of trauma in adults. I think the upshot here is that whatever the behavior, there's always an explanation, and that explanation is probably not just, it's a character flaw or moral weakness. I’ve been a psychology professor since 2012. In the past six years,...
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10 Self-Care Strategies During Trying Times [blogs.psychcentral.com]
Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” – John Muir As a mother, a therapist, a partner, how good am I to any one if I am not taking care of myself? Not so good at all. Those of us in the helping professions (or roles that give out a lot of nurturing energy) especially need to take a pause and focus on replenishment and self-care. When our cup is not topped off, we run on fumes. And that’s...
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15 Common Signs of Unresolved Trauma [healthyplace.com]
Laura's note: This article was originally published in 2016. Recognizing the signs of unresolved trauma can be tricky. Sometimes people who are having difficulties enter therapy without even knowing that they have suffered the trauma that is causing disruptions in their daily lives. The very nature of trauma lends itself to that. Often, when a person goes through a traumatic event, there is some degree of dissociation that happens and the person essentially "blocks out" all, or part, of the...
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2018 National ACEs Conference: Morning Movement Session
Friend and trauma-aware health and fitness coach Renee McLaughlin created this 20-minute light stretching and brain-body connecting workout for ACEs Conference 2018 attendees. We shared it this morning in a session hosted by ACEs Connection. Click to join Renee in a series of moves to get your day off to a relaxed but “woke” start, or to wake up anytime you’re feeling stressed or foggy. That Renee says, “you can’t build strength in tense muscles” makes me think of why these moves would be...
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2018 National ACEs Conference: Morning Movement Session
Friend and trauma-aware health and fitness coach Renee McLaughlin created this 20-minute light stretching and brain-body connecting workout for ACEs Conference 2018 attendees. We shared it this morning in a session hosted by ACEs Connection. Click to join Renee in a series of moves to get your day off to a relaxed but “woke” start, or to wake up anytime you’re feeling stressed or foggy. That Renee says, “you can’t build strength in tense muscles” makes me think of why these moves would be...
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2019 Beyond Paper Tigers Conference Series - Why Take Course One and Course Two?
Community Resilience Initiative is officially launching a new series of blog posts, building to our 2019 Beyond Paper Tigers conference on June 25th - 27th. We’ll cover a range of topics relevant to conference material, events, and inspirations. In addition to the regular conference, CRI is offering two training add-on options on Tuesday June 25, 2019 prior to the conference: Resilience-Based Trainings, Course One and Two . https://criresilient.org/beyon...re-conference-event/ “A group of...
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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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3 Things to Know: Resilience [hogg.utexas.edu]
This is the fourth post in our “3 Things to Know” series, an explanation of concepts influencing community mental health and our grantmaking. Check out others in this series on Health Equity , Social Determinants of (Mental) Health , and Well-being . Resilience is critical to health and mental health interventions. So critical that major public health institutions have developed frameworks to provide clarity about its definition and its role as a key determinant for a person’s, and a...
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Managing in The Midst of COVID-19 series with Janina Fisher, Stephen Levine, & Dr. Bruce Perry (www.traumatherapistproject.com)
For those who love the Trauma Therapist Podcast with Guy MacPherson, as much as I do, here are the three videos in his series on Managing in the Midst of COVID-19. Click each of their names to go to that video interview. Janina Fisher Peter Levine Dr. Bruce Perry
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Managing Post-Traumatic Stress in a Pandemic: 3/19 Practices & Resources Update
Are you looking for new ways to get connected, supported, or to manage stress while managing post-traumatic stress during this pandemic? I am. No matter what our past or present life circumstances, it's safe to say a whole bunch of us are feeling more stressed and if we live with chronic post-traumatic stress to begin with, we might be feeling especially vulnerable right now. New Practices & Resources as of 3/19/2020 Ask BR: COVID-19 (Belleruth Naparstek Answering Questions) Bioenergetic...
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Mind & Body Empowerment for Human Trafficking Victims (starr.org)
Building Resilience and Belonging through Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Starr believes, as its founder Floyd Starr did, that there is no such thing as a bad child. And, when you provide a safe environment, when you treat a child with dignity and respect, it changes a child’s heart. And that, in the end, is what changes a child’s life. It’s a powerful story that we have been helping children write for over 100 years at Starr Commonwealth. For all students on Starr’s campus, this approach is applied...
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Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience Two-Day Intensive Training
with Author, Carolyn Rich Curtis, Ph.D. 8:30 AM–5:00 PM $399 for 2-day Intensive Training CEUs are available for an additional charge. Each trainee must have a copy of Mind Matters ($299 plus tax (CA and SD only) plus S/H) As a result of this training , you will learn to teach: Self-soothing skills to manage emotions Ways to analyze stressful thoughts How to deal with intrusive memories Ways to develop a protective lifestyle And you, as an instructor, will learn . . . How to provide a safe...
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Mindfulness could be a key to recovering from substance abuse, experts say [medicalxpress.com]
Mindfulness might offer more than relief from daily stress. Research now suggests it can boost recovery from addiction and trauma. Investigators at USC believe the contemplative practice could represent the next major breakthrough in the treatment of substance use and major mental health issues. "It's a very different way of doing therapy and being in therapy," said Jordan Davis, an assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. "But it's like the Wild West right...
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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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Morning Meditation
As I continued practicing it, however, I found comfort in releasing the sound into the universe. There were times I would walk around the rest of the day feeling a beautiful energy, a tingly sensation, radiating from my forehead.
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My Story about Healing Moving from “What is wrong with me” to “What is happening – how can I take better care of myself?”
When I was a little girl, I had a lot of ear infections. Did anyone else experience that? Every summer in the middle of the fun of swimming in the pool, I would get an ear infection and one year I got one on my birthday. Obviously, I still remember it. It was a sad time. I always felt like I was missing out on things. And it became a pattern. I would go to the doctor and get lamb’s wool and drops put in my ear. It hurt a lot. I can still remember trying to get comfortable lying on the couch...
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Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains.
Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains. All trauma informed practitioners who are suffering with or who work with adults or children suffering with C-PTSD, PTSD, Developmental Trauma, Depression, Anxiety, ADHD & Sleep Disorders are welcome to apply to be considered for this study. The deadline to request and submit your application is: March 20, 2020 As a trauma...
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Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains.
Need 45 Trauma-Informed Practitioners or Clinicians For Study on Using a Brain Regulation Headband-Bellabee Designed To Help Trauma Survivors Regulate Their Brains. All trauma informed practitioners who are suffering with or who work with adults or children suffering with C-PTSD, PTSD, Developmental Trauma, Depression, Anxiety, ADHD & Sleep Disorders are welcome to apply to be considered for this study. We currently have 41 applicants, and applicantions are approved on a first come first...
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New Book: Crazy Was All I Ever Knew By Alice M. Kenny (pseudonym)
To this day, I still think of my childhood home as "the crazy house." Like me, millions of adult Americans are living with the effects of the precarious childhoods they experienced as offspring of mentally ill parents. If you are one of them, you can no doubt relate to my book. As a child, you most likely lived in a crazy house of your own. As an adult, you’ve probably retained and may even relive memories of your tumultuous upbringing. Crazy Was All I Ever Knew combines memoir with...
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New Self Help App for Trauma Relief available for free from the Peaceful Heart Network
Ulf Sandstrom and Gunilla Hamne of Peaceful Heart Network have spent years in Africa and now in Europe teaching survivors of civil wars and other traumas the Trauma Tapping Technique (TTT), which uses a simplified version of EFT tapping to relieve stress and trauma from the body without using words. They recently released a free app (available in multiple languages) with easy-to-follow video instructions. This would be a great way to introduce children to tapping. Here's what they had to...
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 24, 2020: Using the Community Resiliency Model to self-regulate during the pandemic
Dave Granlund Friday, April 24, 2020 — Elaine Miller-Karas is founder of the Trauma Resources Institute and one of the key creators of the Community Resiliency Model (CRM). CRM is an ACES-science based model to help people become emotionally regulated during natural disasters and other dysregulating times. She will join ACEs Connection SE regional community facilitator Carey Sipp in an informal conversation with the ACEsConnection community. Elaine will discuss how to use the CRM for...
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Next "A Better Normal" community discussion series: April 7, 2020 — Tian Dayton
Therapist and author Dr. Tian Dayton, who first started writing about ACEs science more than 20 years ago, will address grief and maintaining emotional sobriety during COVID-19. Carey Sipp, Southeast community facilitator for ACEs Connection, will host this community conversation, and Alison Cebula, Northeastern regional community facilitator, will moderate.
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Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain
In my last post, I highlighted a book Vincent Felitti mentioned at the CAMFT conference in Orange County. In the same talk, Dr. Felitti also recommended a form of therapeutic writing developed by James Pennebaker to help individuals uncover painful emotions and heal trauma. Pennebaker's book Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain details the why and how. The Pennebaker method has been referenced elsewhere on ACEs Connection; I thought...
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Overcoming Past Trauma to Create a New Future [yogajournal.com]
Yoga teacher Tatiana Forero Puerta, author of Yoga for the Wounded Heart, shares what she’s learned about trauma, clearing emotional patterns, and finding a vision for the future. If at the age of 20 you would’ve asked me to imagine my life 15 years in the future, I wouldn’t have been able to give you an answer. I couldn’t see my life in those terms. When I looked into my future then, I simply saw a field of blackness; my potential was not just obfuscated—it was inaccessible. This is what...
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Parenting during a Pandemic: Donna Jackson Nakazawa Shares
Donna Jackson Nakazawa was a featured guest in an online conversation about coping with COVID held on Twitter recently. It was hosted by KPJR Films . Donna was asked about "effective 'go-to' survival techniques" for parents and her Twitter thread response is comforting, centering, and compassionate. Her words are consolidated and shared, with her permission, below: Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a science journalist and the author of six books, including “ The Angel and the Assassin: The Tiny...
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Paving the Way to Healing Complex Trauma [eurekalert.org]
By Dan Salmon, EurekAlert!, December 13, 2019 A major study led by researchers at La Trobe University in Australia has identified key themes that will be used to inform strategies to support Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents in the first years of their children's lives. The Healing the Past by Nurturing the Future project aims to break the cycle of intergenerational and complex trauma experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people, by co-designing...