HEALING2018-07-19T22:58:48-07:00

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PTSD: Why Does It Happen? How Survivors Can Heal

A traumatic event is something no one is prepared to deal with. You may feel your mind and body are in a state of shock from the experience. You may have nightmares, feel jumpy, or find yourself re-playing the event in your mind. You may even feel disconnected from the world around you. What happened was traumatic, and any person would feel shaken up. This is natural

Healing Through Yoga

There is no denying it, yoga has made its debut in America. There is a yoga studio on every corner. There are hundreds of yoga classes going on every day.  Everyone seems to have at least thought about trying yoga at this point, if they haven’t already been to a class.  Every week there seems to be a new study or article written about yoga’s health benefits

10 Tips to Halt Flashbacks

Flashbacks can take many forms. Children and adults can have emotional flashbacks. Veterans can have combat flashbacks. They are part of the aftermath of trauma for many people. A person can experience trauma after an overwhelming experience, such as violence or an accident. Trauma may result from living with others who feel unsafe, such as parents or caregivers who were scary or shaming. In a trauma flashback,

Understanding Long Term Trauma (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

In an earlier post on how all trauma is not the same, I talk about how single incident trauma and repeated trauma impact people differently. A single incident of trauma catches us off guard and breaks through our defenses. But when trauma is repeated as it is in child abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, or war, then we don’t wait to get ‘caught off guard’ -- we

3 Tools to Help with Trauma Symptoms

Did you know that PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is considered a trauma induced anxiety disorder? PTSD is also considered a normal reaction to abnormal events. That means you are normal, and your responses are normal responses to what happened, the event that happened is considered ‘abnormal.’ Statistically common events, unfortunately, but still ‘abnormal’ in our day to day world.  That means that trauma often shows up

You’re Not Going Crazy: 15 Signs You’re a Victim of Gaslighting

The only way you can describe how you feel is that you feel minimized.  You feel crushed and smothered.  You’re constantly second-guessing yourself; your feelings, your perceptions, your memories, and a small, suffocated part inside of you wonders whether you are actually going crazy. You feel neurotic, you feel hyper-sensitive and you feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. What is wrong with you? If you can identify

The Highly Sensitive Person and Complex Trauma

If you’re reading this, you probably identify as a highly sensitive person (or an HSP). However, you may not know what C-PTSD is or if you’re suffering from it. Complex trauma forms in childhood, possibly even in infancy. For those who were born with the trait of high sensitivity, there’s an even greater susceptibility to being traumatized when there’s a lack of sufficient emotional nurturing early in

Making New Year’s Resolutions that Last

New Years is the time of year that’s universally associated with resolution making. Although most people go through the annual ritual of identifying the things they are determined to change, almost 90% of all resolutions get broken or forgotten by Valentine’s Day. In theory, taking the time to take stock and committing to bettering yourself is a great thing to do. However, setting yourself up to fail

Why Consistency is a Powerful Force for Healing Trauma

Today I’m going to talk about one of the most important concepts on the road to healing for a trauma survivor: consistency. Why is it so important? Many who have endured trauma experienced it during childhood, where they faced overwhelming neglect or danger they couldn’t escape. This could be due to family members who didn’t set clear, safe boundaries or parents or adults who interacted with a

Rejuvenation, Self Care, and Sisterhood: The Importance of Women’s Retreats

As women we tend to take care of everyone around us, but do a poor job at taking care of ourselves. We are expected by society to be motherly and nurturing to our children, husbands and friends, but are considered selfish and lazy if we take time for self care. Even if no one around us says these things, we internalize these societal expectations and mentally abuse

Can Spirituality Heal Anxiety?

Spirituality is something that has been important to me, as it has been a big part of my healing with anxiety. Often people ask if mindfulness is spirituality, and the answer is: it depends on how you define it.  For me, spirituality means living your life for something greater than your thoughts and feelings. That’s it. It does not mean you have to be part of special group,

How To Rid Yourself of Negative Thinking Patterns

After a long, cold winter, now is the perfect time for a rejuvenating spring cleaning. But don’t limit yourself to emptying your closets and scrubbing the kitchen. Your mind needs a good spring cleaning too. I suggest you start by de-cluttering your mind and cleaning out your negative thinking patterns to boost your emotional health. When dealing with stress and anxiety, we tend to think in distorted

Healing, Self Care, and SLEEP

Experts will tell you that there are a variety of ways to deal with and heal from trauma.  There is no denying the accuracy of this statement – every person who has survived personal battles will find their own unique way to overcome trauma.  That being said, there is one thing you simply can’t avoid while you are recovering: self-care.  Unfortunately, when someone suffers from trauma, it

Healing Self-Harm with Compassion

The phrase “self-harming behavior” may call up images of troubled teenagers with cuts on their arms. But self-injury can occur for people of any age, in children, adolescents and adults, whether male or female. This is not at all a teenage fad! People who self-harm or cut are people who are in pain. We have to notice that. The important thing is to notice the emotional pain

Resilience Can Be Learned

Ever look at someone and think to yourself, “How are you still alive?” Maybe that’s just me and the field I work in, but we all know someone who has been through hell. Someone who either struggled with addiction, abuse, poverty, or other challenging life circumstances. We hear stories of life challenges and think, how did this person make it out? How are they so normal? Or

Why Is Gardening So Good For Our Mental Health and PTSD?

It seems that whenever I’ve had discussions with spiritually inclined individuals, it’s inevitable that someone makes a reference to being grounded or centered. Most people don’t question what this means, but somehow we all seem to know. Just saying or suggesting the two words seems to quickly bring about a sense of calm. Some people may think the terms are synonymous, but there are some distinctions. Being

Actionable Steps To Conquer Overwhelm

It is possible to conquer that dreaded overwhelm. We can conquer it with the right tools and actions. In this blog, we’re going to look at how to conquer overwhelm, as well as how to push it back into a dormant state, where it belongs. For many, overwhelm is a very familiar place. There are people who say to me, “I’ve felt overwhelmed for the last 10

Why Therapists and Therapy Can Be Helpful

I have always considered therapy a “gift” and the decision to work with a therapist a proactive sign of self-compassion and courage as well as a healthy statement about one’s desire to learn, grow, and heal. However, for countless people the idea of seeking out therapy and opening up about painful emotions, intimate or shame-based thoughts and behaviors is too daunting, and sadly, keeps them from the

Understanding Self-Harm

First, let's start with a clinical definition of self-harm so we can be on the same page. Self-harm (self-harm and self-injury are terms used interchangeably) is typically described as a way of hurting oneself on purpose in a way that is generally socially unacceptable (as opposed to tattoos or piercings) that is done to reduce and/or communicate strong negative emotion. So generally we think of this as

Transform Your Self Talk through Mindfulness & Emotional Self-Care

A beautiful outcome of mindfulness meditation is the opportunity to slow down and explore our relationship with our minds.  We meditate to understand the stories we tell ourselves about our lives and experiences. This is so important for trauma survivors, mainly because we oftentimes make up a story that the world around us is scary, or that we aren't good enough or that there's something wrong with

Mindfully Feeling like Sh*t

Sometimes, life hits us with an arrow and we feel like shit. We lose our job, a relationship ends, we get sick, someone close to us passes away, someone insults us at work. Sooner or later, physical and emotional pain is bound to show up in life. If you’re hurting there are a ton of reactions that normally show up, all of which are human: Anger toward

Finding You Again After A Bad Break-Up

This was the week of talking to people who have just gotten out of bad relationships. It is such an excruciating process, isn’t it? Particularly if it was not a “we just grew apart” break-up but more of an, “I completely lost myself in this relationship” kind of a thing. I’ve talked a lot with people on how to start to recover from this experience, how to

How to Take a Nap: 16 Tips to Help You Benefit from Napping

If you are like most people, you are probably not getting enough sleep at night. So, what can you do to stop yourself from being a zombie during the day? Take a nap, of course! Believe it or not, napping can actually have a number of advantages, most of which improve your cognitive function. You will be more alert, improve your memory, be productive, and amp up

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