Tagged With "Working Your Mind"
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Trauma Amid The Coronavirus: 8 Ways To Prevent Symptoms From Worsening [mindbodygreen.com]
By Shaili Jain, Mind Body Green, March 23, 2020 Amid the coronavirus pandemic, people everywhere are adjusting to a new normal. As we're all experiencing, the stress of these adjustments certainly differ from our regular day-to-day stress. And for those living with trauma, there's a very real possibility their symptoms could get worse under the current circumstances. With standard ways to cope unavailable (like going to the gym, meeting up with friends, or going to a concert) this can be a...
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Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Can be a Great Coping Tool & Here's How to Bring it Into Your Practice [bustle.com]
By Jay Polish, Bustle, August 18, 2019 Whether you’ve never tried yoga or are deeply into your practice, you probably know that yoga has an intense way of integrating your body’s movements with your mind’s inner chatter. For some, that connection facilitates a sense of calm and restoration. For others, that peace seems far away, if not impossible, and yoga classes offer more fear than relief. When yoga calls unexpected attention to your mind and body — and when it involves subtle competition...
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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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Triggered by the Holidays? [attachmenttraumanetwork.org]
From the blog manager [of the Attachment & Trauma Network blog] Many of us raising children affected by early trauma and attachment disorders know holiday stress all too well. Even the most well-meaning relatives can inflict additional pain, sometimes because they simply do not understand, other times because they cannot help but judge. Our decisions, our families, our lives, may look very different from what they dreamed, hoped, or expected. Old hurts get triggered and we find ourselves...
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VA TICNs eNote Special Edition Vol. 4 [grscan.com]
*Special Edition: Uplift* Below you will find some resources to help with the life changes as a result of COVID-19. Please feel free to pick and choose to share with your networks or simply forward along this email. Tuning Into the Beauty of the World from Home Explore.com has tons of live feeds, from the Sheep Barn at Farm Sanctuary and the Gathering Room at Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary to the Smith River in California's Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park . Take a virtual garden tour on...
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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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Victim to Victory: Memoir
I wrote Victim to Victory, healing generational abuse from my bloodline, during a seven-year journey of being very sick. I am not a writer. I am a healer. In those years of losing my ability to walk and having my family abandon me I turned inward, asking why and how do I get out of this straight jacket. I did everything imaginable, but the pain was chronic and my will was losing strength. In my darkest hours, I would hear a voice during my meditations. I had nothing to lose, so I followed...
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We Need to Help More Trauma Survivors Value Self-Care (44 min podcast)
We focus on self-care in trauma-informed therapy. But it's all too easy to forget to apply it to yourself! Even if you’re well on your way to healing, it’s important to remember that your past experiences may still impact the way you take care of yourself today.
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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] Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: How to Tell Your Community Story GRC 2.0 Celebrate
ACEs Connection presents, "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL)", an interactive webinar training series focused on developing existing and potential online community managers and IRL ACEs champions. This series is dedicated to providing insight into creating sustainable and effective online & IRL ACEs initiatives. In this fifth session, we’ll talk about why it's so critical to tell your story far and wide. This incudes how to blog and share...
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Wellness and Resiliency Toolkit for Kids with Trauma
I'm excited to share a booklet created for youth in Oregon foster care at a Wellness camp this summer. Youth were provided with these quick, easy and effective (and evidence based) "Mindful Moments" exercises in their Wellness Toolkits and they were practiced throughout the day at camp so that they could be remembered in times of stress and dysregulation. The exercised are designed to quickly bring them back to a state of calm. The youth really enjoyed them, and found them easy and...
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What a Therapist Wants You to Know If You’re Struggling With Trauma During COVID-19 [themighty.com]
My work — whether this is my person-to-person therapy services or everything I write and teach about online — is oriented towards helping those who come from trauma backgrounds (whether this is isolated trauma or complex relational trauma ) heal from, make sense of, and move forward with their lives, building something beautiful after really hard things have happened. Something tells me that, in the coming years, my work as a trauma therapist may be required more than ever. And yet also,...
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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...
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When It Comes to Your Mental Health, Listen to Your Body [verilymag.com]
In our culture, lack of sleep is worn like a badge of honor. We glorify busyness. Very few things cause us to change up our usual routine or do anything other than what we expect of ourselves. We tend to run on overdrive, barreling through the day’s to-do lists regardless of what we are feeling, to the point that we often don’t even realize what we are feeling—and not just emotionally. We often suppress or ignore physical and emotional feelings that get in the way or slow us down—feelings...
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When Mindfulness Is a Trauma Trigger: April #MeToo
While mindfulness can be a powerful tool for self-care, it can also act as a trauma trigger. Here I describe how I've come to terms with that.
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When Things Get Out of Hand: Trauma and the Triune Brain [goodtherapy.org]
In recent decades, neuroscience and psychotherapy have joined forces in seeking to understand the biological bases of behavior. The brain is a complex organ, and as we study its function and adaptations we create a window of understanding into how our brains, bodies, and psyches respond to traumatic stimuli. Have you ever heard of the triune brain? This is a simplified, three-part model of the brain, as originally explained by Dr. Daniel Siegel , that helps us to understand the neurological...
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When You Need to Slow Down But It’s Hard [blogs.psychcentral.com]
Productivity is so seductive. It feels wonderful to accomplish a task and check it off our to-do lists. It feels awesome to accomplish more than we even thought possible in a given day. Plus, there are many tasks that are non-negotiable. There are many chores that as responsible, mature, working adults we must do. Or many projects, that if not done today, just get transferred onto our lists for tomorrow. And then we’re behind. And then we’re scrambling. And what if we never catch up? There’s...
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When you’re Triggered and Regress Emotionally [pro.psychcentral.com]
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt much younger than your actual biological age, and not in a good way? Perhaps when you encounter certain people, such as your parents, you start feeling and acting like you did as a child; this is an example of emotional regression. Usually, when we are in close, interpersonal relationships with certain people, we find ourselves most vulnerable to regressing emotionally. The purpose of this article is to educate you on what emotional regression...
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Why Focus on Resilience? 2019 BPT Conference Big Idea Session with Teri Barila
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in” -Desmond Tutu. This quote captures the essence of why resilience matters. To Community Resilience Initiative, Resilience is not about “lifting yourself up by your bootstraps” or “bouncing back” from serious harm or injury. To us, Resilience is about self-discovery and self-awareness based on what the ACE Study, neurobiology, and epigenetics tell us...
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Why Focus on Resilience? 2019 BPT Conference Big Idea Session with Teri Barila
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in” -Desmond Tutu. This quote captures the essence of why resilience matters. To Community Resilience Initiative, Resilience is not about “lifting yourself up by your bootstraps” or “bouncing back” from serious harm or injury. To us, Resilience is about self-discovery and self-awareness based on what the ACE Study, neurobiology, and epigenetics tell us...
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Why Silence is So Good For Your Brain (dailygood.org)
We live in a loud and distracting world, where silence is increasingly difficult to come by -- and that may be negatively affecting our health. In fact, a 2011 World Health Organization report called noise pollution a "modern plague," concluding that "there is overwhelming evidence that exposure to environmental noise has adverse effects on the health of the population." As our internal and external environments become louder and louder, more people are beginning to seek out silence, whether...
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3 Ways Healthy Relationships Help Heal Trauma
Healthy relationships matter, especially when it comes to healing from trauma. Asking for help can be difficult for everyone. It can be especially difficult for those who have survived trauma. Through therapy, it’s possible to realize that you do truly deserve deep relationships as you grow and evolve through life—in the good times and the hard times.
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4 Subtle Ways Childhood Trauma Affects You As An Adult (Even If You Think You're Over It) [yourtango.com]
When we bury our feelings, we bury who we are. Whether you witnessed or experienced violence as a child or your caretakers physically neglected you or you were a victim of emotional abuse, when you grow up in a traumatizing environment you are likely to still show signs of that trauma as an adult. Children make meaning out of the events they witness and the things that happen to them, and they create an internal map of how the world is. This meaning-making helps them cope. But if children...
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4 Techniques Used Around The World To Heal Trauma [mindbodygreen.com]
As a psychiatrist who has worked with psychological trauma for more than 20 years, I have seen and heard stories of violence, genocide, abuse, and loss from many places around the world. The context always differs, but people everywhere share the same emotions of grief, anxiety, anger, fear, and depression that grip us in the aftermath of a traumatic event. The nonprofit organization I founded and direct, The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) , teaches tools of self-care and group support...
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4 Ways Childhood Trauma Haunts You As An Adult (& How To Move On) [yourtango.com]
The wounds from your childhood are still fresh. Understanding the effects of childhood trauma and abuse isn't easy, but it's worth exploring if you ever want to move on. You grew up and did the best you could to let go and move on. But, you’ve also had a lot of struggles, especially with mental health and relationships. You’ve suffered from anxiety. You don’t feel lovable. You haven’t been able to find love that works. You’re afraid of wanting too much. Maybe you have an eating disorder. You...
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4 Ways to Get Through Any Life Change [psychologytoday.com]
Have you ever thought, “I should be happy and excited! I’m making a good change in my life – so why am I so stressed?” You’re probably stressed because almost any change, whether it's positive or negative, whether you wanted it or it was a surprise, can create stress . In fact, since 1967, when psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe published findings from studying the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients, therapists have known that both unhappy and happy life transitions can...
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5 Skills to Add to Your Emotional Toolbox [psychologytoday.com]
As a child and adolescent clinical psychologist , I'm a huge fan of using metaphors and analogies when I'm explaining a wide range of psychological facts. I've found that no matter the age, metaphors and analogies are just easier to process. Therefore, whenever I'm talking to someone else about what I do in therapy , I really enjoying referencing an imaginary emotional toolbox. In simple words, my job is to help whoever walks into my office refine that emotional toolbox. Together, we: Find...
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5 Tips to Get You Through the Kavanaugh Investigation (No Matter What Are Your Politics)
Current events this week are extremely triggering and traumatic for many. Here are a few tips from a trauma psychotherapist.
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6 Habits of Hope (dailygood.org)
If we are not present, we will not see what’s happening and therefore miss out on life. Conversely, whenever we pay attention, life reveals itself to us Being present also cultivates intrinsic hope because it gives us more choices about how to act and makes it more likely that our choices will be appropriate in the moment. Mindfulness Being present is not only about noticing what is happening in the external world; it is also about noticing what is happening in our minds. In fact, you can’t...
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6 Signs Your Past Childhood Trauma Is Making You Physically Sick [yourtango.com]
There may be more to your illness than you think. Can't figure out why you're always sick? Child abuse and neglect both contribute to childhood trauma, but what if the effects of these follow you to adulthood in the form of a physical illness? There is a scientific link between illness and childhood abuse and neglect — whether it's physical, emotional, or sexual. The effects of victimization are far-reaching — especially when it begins before the age of seven. Current science shows the...
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7 Health Benefits of Laughter [blogs.psychcentral.com]
We all know how great it feels to have a real belly laugh, one of those episodes when you laugh so hard you can hardly breathe, and your stomach aches with the effort. Laughing together is a great way to build bonds and feel closer to one another, and a genuine laugh or giggle-fit can make even the most dire of situations a little easier to manage. Laughter enhances teamwork, diffuses conflicts, and strengthens relationships. But did you know there are actually measurable health benefits to...
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75 Calm Down Strategies for Kids
I came across this webpage and wanted to share with my parent and caregiver small groups. My intern typed it up into a handout. Feel free to share.
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8 Important Tools for Healing Trauma [thriveglobal.com]
Learning to understand your body and your inner emotional is the most valuable education you can receive. Healing is not about erasing what happened in the past, it is about finding the places the hurt got stuck, and loving that part of yourself so much it becomes free. I share with you today from what has worked for me personally in healing my own childhood trauma. Experiencing overwhelming events most often will later manifest at some point as ‘disease’, as we are often unable to cope in...
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8 Strategies for Overcoming Shame [liveboldandbloom.com]
“Shame is a soul eating emotion.” – C.G. Jung I have felt shame. You have felt it too. It's that emotion when you want to tuck yourself into a tight little ball, roll into dark corner, and disappear. You are the bad little girl or boy who is unworthy, unlovable, and cast out. Shame feels like you've done something very, very wrong — so wrong that your self-esteem withers and you see yourself as seriously flawed. We often confuse shame with guilt, but they are not the same. As shame and...
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9 Ways to Access Your Inner Strength During Traumatic Times (wakeup-world.com)
A traumatic experience is anything that severely threatens your emotional, psychological or physical well-being. Right now in the world, that would be the COVID-19 epidemic. Not only are many of us losing our jobs while being forced into isolation with scarce resources, but our very survival is being challenged. That’s a lot to deal with! Trauma is essentially what happens when we feel totally powerless, and are frozen internally into that state of being. But here’s the liberating truth:...
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A "Better Normal" Community Discussion - Trauma Sensitive Yoga for Embodiment and Agency
TCTSY (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga) is the practice of bringing our bodies into the present moment to integrate and recover from the harmful effects of adverse life experiences. This evidence-based method focuses on the felt sense of the body, also known as interoception. Exercising interoception helps inform one’s choice-making and allows participants to restore their connection of mind with body and cultivate a sense of agency that is often compromised as a result of trauma. Dion...
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A Brief Guide to Self-Harm and Unhealed Childhood Trauma [blogs.psychcentral.com]
Self-harm is a commonly misunderstood psychological phenomenon. Some people believe that those who harm themselves are simply stupid because why else a person would do that. Others think that self-harm is only attention-seeking behavior. Some even call it selfish. What is self-harm? Before digging deeper, let’s first define what constitutes self-harm. Self-harmful behavior is a behavioral pattern that results in harm to yourself. A very simple example of that is cutting. Another, more common...
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A Day At a Time
We are not strangers to unusual challenges in the addiction’s world. We have lived with chaos and unmanageability before and we have learned to use program principals to create calm in a storm. We have also learned to accept and even embrace challenges as part of our spiritual growth. And we have found that embracing those challenges has ultimately led to our being happier, stronger and more resilient people. This current moment in time however, is giving “practicing these principles in all...
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A Guide to Glide Through the Great Awakening – Spread Hope Not Fear (wakeup-world.com)
What’s happening right now is the greatest awakening we’ve ever seen. Whether you are a light worker or just waking up to the whole consciousness thing, there is something for everyone to learn. It’s an emotional time, one that needs to be honored with kindness and compassion. People are grieving. They are grieving their loved ones and what was. Let yourself be where you are . Allow yourself to be in it. Feel what you feel and let your emotions move through you. It’s the way to the other...
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A Holiday Guide for Abuse Survivors [psychcentral.com]
Hardly anyone would claim to be a stranger to holiday stress. From money woes to holiday travel, traditions, and family tension, at some point everyone has struggled to make it to January. But the holidays can be a particularly tough time of year for anyone with a family history of abuse, whether it’s emotional or physical. The idea that one shouldn’t be alone during the holiday season is drilled into our heads and we want familiar people near, even if those people can be toxic to us.
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A Holiday Guide for Abuse Survivors [psychcentral.com]
Hardly anyone would claim to be a stranger to holiday stress. From money woes to holiday travel, traditions, and family tension, at some point everyone has struggled to make it to January. But the holidays can be a particularly tough time of year for anyone with a family history of abuse, whether it’s emotional or physical. The idea that one shouldn’t be alone during the holiday season is drilled into our heads and we want familiar people near, even if those people can be toxic to us.
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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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Accountability In Recovery
I finally got sober after about 6 years of being in and out on in 2015. The list of reasons why this time worked against all the others is very extensive, almost everything about me had to change. One of the most important ones was learning how to be accountable. From a young age, before I even touched drugs, my word meant very little. I was king of doing what I want when I want to and vice versa. If I said I would be somewhere or do something for someone it was more likely I was going to...
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ACEs Connection's Inclusion Tool makes sure nobody's left out
We developed ACEs Connection's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Tool — called the Inclusion Tool, for short — to ensure that ACEs initiatives across the world focus on being inclusive when forming a steering committee, recruiting leaders, providing education about ACEs science, recruiting members, or providing resources and services within their communities. The more inclusive your ACEs initiative is, the more diverse it will be, giving your initiative a real shot at achieving equity and...
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Addiction Isn't the Problem, It's the Symptom [pesi.com]
Note: You may receive an unsolicited invite to a class when downloading the article. By Gabor Mate, PESI, May 2, 2020 Have you ever wondered, as I have, how someone with an addiction could go through 21 detox centers and 5 treatment facilities, yet continue to relapse? It wasn’t until I started working in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—one of the most concentrated areas of drug use, mental illness, and poverty in North America—that I realized... The reason these treatments do NOT work is...
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Affirming Our Self-Love, Self-Acceptance, and Self-Worth
CRI hosted a training in Everett recently, focusing on the power of self-love and acceptance. As a branch of our Course Two material- CAREER, an acronym for Celebration, Affirmation, Regulation, Expectation, Education, and Education- we focused the day on Affirmation. Teri brought in arts and crafts, scrapbook paper, and our friends came to participate in making bookmarks. The day started with the song, "How Could Anyone" . How could anyone ever tell you You were anything less than beautiful...
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Ancestral Trauma Meets Yoga in a Hospital Setting
I heard a story this week that sent sensation to my heart. It was the story of a woman of color and her child. They were at a hospital, I'm unsure the specifics of where or why. One of the nurses, a white woman, had an interaction with the child and then complimented the child on their appearance, strength and intelligence. The mother proceeded to hide her child behind her back and said, "oh no my child is none of that." On the surface, as a white woman, I thought, "Ahh, that is kind of the...
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Announcing CRI's Newest Trainings- July and September!
CRI is excited to announce new trainings! We will have online trainings in July, and an in-person training in September. July Online Trainings CRI Course 1 LIVE WEBCAST: Trauma-Informed Training A dynamic 2 part six-hour LIVE WEBCAST course, Course 1 introduces CRI’s capacity-building framework for building resilience, KISS. Knowledge, Insight, Strategies and Structure describes our community’s learning and movement from theory to practice and how to implement evidence-based strategies into...
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Apply now to Showcase your work at the San Francisco National ACEs Conference in October 2018!
Applications due June 18. Application link included in this post
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Benefits of Meditation
From many centuries ago, peoples are practicing meditation to control their minds, their thought and so on. By which they can make their mind to think positive and move ahead towards their goals in life. Peoples are struggling with the practice of meditation for physical, spiritual and emotional well being. But if we look from a scientific point of view, thus really meditation does anything the physical and mental conditions of an individual. Does meditation really works! After being some...