Addiction

Indigenous Intergenerational Trauma

How do we take in the enormity of pain in ourselves and each other? It’s like the stinky sludge in the bottom of a swamp, where we are almost used to the pervading aroma, then the wind shifts and we

A Long Memory and One Goal

It seems so clear, doesn’t it? If that person would just follow my advice, they would get better, stop obsessing about that lost relationship, get their projects in on time, or not wake up hungover every Sunday. If they would

Like your softest, most comfortable shirt …

We’ve had the rug pulled out from under our feet. Within one week in March, everything suddenly changed leaving us afraid and upset. Three weeks ago we reached a breaking point around police brutality against Black people. Millions of people

Courage and Resilience

What gets us through hard times? Reflect for a moment on other times in your life when you were struggling to stay afloat. What helped you then?  For many people, a sense of community, knowing we are in this together,

Afraid Yes Powerless No

We all feel fear. We don’t all feel powerless. The way we experience this crisis is not the same, and we have power to change our response.  We are in this together. I am not alone. I can do my

Mama Bear Energy

Don’t get between a mother bear and her cubs! Her protection is swift and merciless. If she sees you as a threat, she takes you out. Our fierce inner protector has more options than the mama bear standing on her

Are you okay being alone?

Something that is difficult for many people right now is to be alone. Some of this is fear about how terrible it would be to be in the hospital without people we love at our side. We feel for people

Love Flows in Both Directions

Hurt people hurt people. This is obvious to us when we see physical, sexual, emotional abuse or severe neglect.  Children are also hurt when parents are too stressed, busy, distracted or depressed to get to know them.  To really feel connected,

Radical Recovery Summit

This is one of my favorite times of year. Not because of the change in season. I prefer the warming days of spring. It is because I get to interview passionate people about their innovative, radical work healing trauma and

A List of Their Names

September 30th is Orange Shirt Day, commemorating children who were forced into Canada’s Indian Residential Schools. Today on Facebook I saw the list of 2,800 children who died in these schools. There are at least 1,600 more unnamed children who

I’m a Small-town Girl

I am a small-town girl from Saskatchewan, a prairie province in Canada that most people wouldn’t know how to pronounce let alone know where it is. I grew up in a home where I was well cared for physically. No

Friends With My Body? Really?

Do you feel good will towards your body? Do you love your body? Could you be friends with your body? For most of us the answer is complicated, embedded with lots of history and memories of past experiences. One of

Radical Recovery Summit 2019

32 fascinating interviews with innovative leaders in the field of addiction and recovery. I love talking with the people in the Summit because they are passionate about their work. Addiction is so prevalent in our society and the stats for

Hatred and Fear

“Some people find relief in drugs like heroin, some are finding relief and validation in harboring hate. Both hate and addiction  are a manifestation of a society that is ill, disconnected, and traumatized. Just like addiction provides relief to people

Trauma Therapist Podcast

Listen on iTunes episode #304 or The Trauma Therapist Website I was interviewed by Guy MacPherson for the Trauma Therapist Podcast and it went live this week. Guy is experienced and asked good questions (I’m episode #304!). He asked about the

Time for a System Upgrade!

We have a nervous system and primitive brain ideally suited for human conditions over the last hundreds of thousands of years. We avoid pain and seek pleasure. We instinctively pull back from fire. We avoid life threats. We evolved this

Healthy Mind in Everyday Life

As we heal from trauma, we develop strength and resilience. Our mind and system settles and we become calmer. We now know that we can’t emotionally self-regulate on our own. We co-regulate, which means we need to be around people

I Wasn’t Calm I Was Frozen

I always thought of myself as quite calm. I was actually frozen. It is how I got through my traumatic teen years and I realize now that the protective freeze took many decades to completely thaw. This makes sense. Children

Red Alert

A few years ago journalist Johann Hari began speaking about the root cause of addiction being a lack of connection. Trauma expert Dr Gabor Maté speaks about unresolved intergenerational and personal trauma at the root of disconnection from ourselves and

Intention for Nurturing Supportive Self-Care

Near the end of our online daily practices, I often open a space for intention. Someone might set an intention to touch back in through the day to the deepest stillness experienced during the practice, or to follow the breath

Committing to my body

My drive for emotional safety overpowered care for my body. We have many words to describe the very common dissociation of ourselves from our bodies. “She’s stuck in her head.” “I live from the neck up.” We feel like we

Covering My Ears

When my grandson was younger and didn’t want to listen, he would put his hands over his ears and chant “covering my ears, not listening to you”. It’s a strategy with some merit. Learning to work skilfully with the mind

Radical Recovery Summit interviews

Watch all 24 interviews! What impacted you most? Who do you want to watch again? The two most-watched interviews were Scott Kiloby on Real Freedom and Dr Gabor Mate on Trauma, Connection and Addiction. In this Summit, we get to

Radical Recovery Radical Freedom

Radical Recovery is Radical Freedom We all use substances and processes to modify our experience in the moment. Sometimes it progresses from a temporary relief, fun, or a simple distraction into addiction. There is difference between an ice cream on a

Radical Recovery

What is radical recovery? For two months I have been interviewing an amazing group of thought leaders and innovators involved in the field of addiction and recovery. A common theme is that trauma underlies addiction. “The real calamity of trauma

Confidence to Stay Present With Energy

The thing we’ve been avoiding all this time through addictions is just our own system wanting to warn us or protect us. When we have the direct experience of that, everything becomes workable. Most of us don’t want to be

The “Really??!!” Diet

Our habits and minds have so much momentum. This shows up in the way we take the edge off what we’re feeling or escape the present moment through some kind of comforting or addictive behavior. I have been using the word