It was National Coming Out Day this week and every year I post something on my personal Facebook page. It is important that when we think of LGBTQ2S+ that real people come to mind. Knowing someone personally helps because the
Brave and Fierce
Kind & Compassionate With Myself
I am consistently kind and compassionate with myself. I don’t turn on myself when something “goes wrong”. I intimately know myself and I am on my own side. That is not true for most people. It has not always been
Build Resilience and Ease
How old were you when you began to feel like an adult? I was about fifty, and I find that sense of being a grown up is still deepening. I feel more ease. I belong in my life and it
Open Hearted Presence
What niggles at us, and what we worry about, points to what needs our unconditional kind attention. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had enough. I hate that people act the way they do. I just want to be happy
Connecting With the “Other Side”
“We’re looking at a lot of traumatized people who are finding a political outlet for their mistrust and anger. The issue acts as a flashpoint.” Dr Gabor Maté This week in our Sunday class, we are inquiring into the pressure
I’m Not Ready to Return To “Normal”
It does not feel like a post-Covid world to me yet! We’re bracing ourselves for a return to work and school during a 4th wave with the Delta variant. Some people mask and vaccinate. Some don’t. People are dying. Our
Life Shouldn’t Be This Way!
Life, as it is, appears in front of us moment to moment. We all have trouble accepting reality. We enjoy parts of life and hate other parts. We grieve and are afraid and angry. We overflow with joy and wonder.
Grounded Presence During Hard Times
As we move into schools opening during a fourth wave of Covid, the IPCC report to the UN on the climate emergency, Haiti and Afghanistan, many people are feeling overwhelmed and despairing. In our Sunday community classes in September, we’ll
Open Hearted and Engaged
“I doThe Work that Reconnects so that when things fall apart, we won’t turn on each other. ” Joanna Macy “The central question is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort. Every day we
Reality
I am not looking for someone to save me from the consequences of my past. Um, that’s not completely true for me. Do we ever completely give up hope? I live in a 68 year old body and feel the
Building Happiness and Resilience
We carry the history of our fear and anxiety in our body through our nervous system. This is how our past shapes the present. The relative calm or hypervigilance in our nervous system determines our health and happiness, what’s going
Do We Care Too Little or Too Much?
How To Live in a Burning World Without Losing Your Mind. In this article, Liza Featherstone suggests we apply what we know about healing trauma to our response to climate catastrophe. I agree. We know that when people feel threatened,
The Greatest Gift You Can Give the World is a Peaceful Mind
When people around you are in an uproar, there has been a flood or school shooting and you are feeling heartsick with grief, when people close to you are anxious, try to not add to the chaos. Steady yourself. Come
Why Does Healing Take So Long?!
We know we are different now. We’re not as reactive. We have tools to self-regulate and we remember to use them. We recognize when we’re in survival responses of fight/ flight/ freeze/ fawn. We don’t go as deep into the
Fat Shaming
Was food restricted in your house? Was a parent ashamed of you because of your weight? Did you grow up hearing a parent expressing contempt for their own body or weight? If you were labelled fat as a child, were
I Love My Body
Did you wince when you read that? I love my body just as it is. It seems like a good idea to at least try to like our body and to honor its needs. Our relationship with our body is
Support Your Young Nervous System
To develop a strong resilient nervous system, children need to be around adults who are grounded and well-regulated. Babies need to co-regulate in order to develop neural networks for trust and connection. Attachment parenting emphasizes empathy and responsiveness to the
If I Were Free
If I were completely free to be authentically me, I would … If you were completely free, what would you bring in and what would you release? Let yourself visualize what that would be like. What is your felt sense
Kind and Open Hearted
“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone — any person or any force — dampen, dim or diminish your light … Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold
Running Out of Chances
We don’t get unlimited chances in life. I’m not going to marry Paul McCartney like the Ouija board promised when I was eleven. We don’t get to go back in time to open our hearts and tell that person what
Your Parents Did the Best They Could AND …
This does not change the fact and impact of your own experiences – you were and are affected by your parents’ unhealed trauma, neglect, and abuse. You have the right to set boundaries, and take physical and emotional space to
Perfection
Perfectionism is a trauma response. Trying to be perfect is a way to stay out of trouble, to be validated as good, and to feel included and safer. The elusive goal of perfection forever stays out of reach. Our experience
AHA Moments and Superhighways
In neuroscience they’re called neural networks. In yoga they’re called samskaras and vasanas. In everyday life, we know them as ruts or deep grooves of habit. “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” Dr Rick Hanson In our healing work, we
Outsider
You are the designated difficult person in your family – not “like” the others You are queer in a heterosexual family who does or doesn’t accept or celebrate you You are of a different race to the rest of your
Connection After Ordinary Trauma
“Safety is the absence of threat PLUS the feeling of connection.” Dr StephenPorges Somatic mindfulness practices allow us to track the actual mechanisms of disconnection. It makes complete sense that when we bump into stored trauma, we feel overwhelmed and
Agreeableness
Agreeableness includes trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and prosocial behaviors like cooperation, helpfulness, and attuned empathy. It seems simple on the surface. Who wouldn’t want to be more agreeable and prosocial? Traits of people high in agreeableness: interested in and cares
Stepping Out Into the World Again
Before Covid, most of our social anxiety had to do with possible rejection or exclusion. With Covid, we have added an alarming threat. Someone’s breath could kill us and we have no way of knowing who is dangerous and who
Don’t Make Me Into a Hashtag #BLM
“Change the culture.” Jackie Summers. “We’re living through a second Civil Rights movement. It started with the death of Trayvon Martin, and hit fever pitch last year with the murder of George Floyd. It isn’t enough. They. Keep. Killing. Us.
Connection With Reality
Dr Gabor Maté speaks about the effect of traumatic experiences as being disconnecting. Nurturing authentic connection with ourselves is thrilling, painful and raw. It is the aliveness we long for and it is a bold move. What does disconnection look
When We Are Erased
Objectification is when we use another person as a way to fill our needs. This isn’t the interaction with others that happens all the time. We are lonely, call a friend and feel better just by feeling understood. They do
Anxiety Talking
There are many ways to release anxiety. We might practice yoga, go for a swim, do a breathing practice, or connect with a friend. When we’re jumping out of our skin, we need strong action to down-regulate our nervous system.
The Soft Underbelly of Anger
We get angry when our expression of personal power is hampered. We can only metabolize our anger by feeling it. We then can come to clarity around appropriate expression of anger. There is a vast difference between a fight response,
Connecting With Our Inner Child
How does your inner child feel about it? From one person, this can be an invitation into curiosity and to heal disconnection. From someone else, it can indicate contempt for being foolish enough to fall for that inner child nonsense.
Should We Get Back on the Horse?
In 2005, I was physically assaulted while riding my bicycle to work. Both police officers on the scene told me to ride my bike to work the next day or I never would. They assured me it was very unlikely
No Justice No Peace
We intuitively know that justice for everyone is the pathway to true peace. We still live with de-facto segregation and isolation from each other and experience this loss, pain and grief in both obvious and subtle yet profound ways. It
The Adults Have Arrived
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris striding confidently along with the caption “the adults have arrived” (meme on Facebook after the election results were announced) Life is chaotic when the rules of truth and civilized behavior are ignored or ridiculed. It’s
You Complete Me
We are conditioned to believe Hallmark channel ideas about romantic love. We are vulnerable to them because humans are hardwired to seek connection. This contrasts our own direct experience which is that people can let us down and hurt us.
Pain of Not Loving Ourselves
As we heal, at some point we see and know in our guts and bones what we lost due to childhood trauma. Our primitive brain and nervous system do their best to protect us through fight/flight/freeze/fawn. What is the cost
Arrested self-protection
Who protected you as a small child through your teen years and into young adult life? Much of the conversation about anger focuses on explosive anger and out of control rage. The ruined relationships caused by lashing out or the
Righteous Anger and Moral Outrage
“Rage is the biological force that protects that which is loved.” Valarie Kaur We know anger as the fight response in our nervous system, the fiery energy of lashing out and fighting back. We recognize a transgression against ourselves. Someone
Self-Love and World Domination
Heidi Green believes everyone has the power to be truly happy and to have a loving relationship with our younger selves. “I have to be able to love little Heidi. Until you can see your own young self like other
Cues of Safety
This week I had the honor and pleasure of interviewing Dr Stephen Porges for the Radical Recovery Summit. Those of you who are familiar with my work have heard me say many times “Safety IS the Treatment”. It has become
I’m Not Giving Up
“I’m not talking about blind optimism when I’m talking about hope. I’m talking about hope in the face of uncertainty. Hope in the face of difficulty. That sensibility is something I’ve found very valuable. The people I intend to admire
Perception of Threat
Neuroception is our unconscious perception of danger and safety. It is an ongoing involuntary response of our nervous system and it drives more of our life experience than we might realize or want. Our system is set up with a
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
Gifts We Offer We Receive
“The greatest gift you can give the world is a peaceful mind.” ~my meditation teacher Swami Veda Bharati Guiding a daily online practice has changed my life in so many ways and it is a favorite part of my day.
What We Want – What We Need – What We Get
“You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find. You get what you need.” Rolling Stones We want people to be careful with our tender hearts. We long to be seen and
A Tentative Sigh of Relief
If you celebrated when the US election results were called last week, you may have noticed a change in your body this week. Many of us are talking about it. The tight grip in our stomach loosening a bit. Our
Connecting Through the Fear
What part does fear play in your life? In modern life? In the US election? In our response to Covid-19? Our human bodies evolved nervous systems that respond to threat with fear then activate survival responses – flight fight freeze
Grieving the Loss of Our Innocence
It is Tuesday morning, November 3, 2020. We are watching the rise of fascism and the fall of democracy in the US. And we are watching a groundswell of activism and determination to fight back and to create and recover
Metabolizing Trauma Through Our Bodies
“Without a clear and present focus on the body, trauma cannot be addressed.” Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands Like many others, I have been more deeply engaged in racial justice and anti-racism since the murder of George Floyd in May
Sharing Authentically
Listen here if you prefer We all long for it. That moment when we share something personal and the other person “gets it”. Our direct experience is that we took a risk to be authentic, and we are rewarded with