Trauma tricks us into believing that everything is black and white, right or wrong, us versus them. This is our survival instinct kicking in. When our only options to conflict are fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, we become reactive. This may have worked well in prehistoric times, when our biggest conflict was eat or be […]
Compassion in conflict: Making peace with but/and Read More »
TRIGGER WARNING:This post contains discussions about mental health that may be upsetting or triggering for trauma survivors. If you are at risk for serious depression, anxiety, emotional instability, or self-harm, consider reading this post in the company of a trusted, trauma-informed supporter. This is our fourth and final segment of the four-part series titled It’s
Spiritual Abuse and Redefining Love Read More »
Gaslighting is a major buzzword right now. In fact, Merriam-Webster chose it as the word of 2022. But what does it mean? Merriam-Webster defines gaslighting as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” According to the Merriam-Webster website, there was a 1740% increase in lookups of the word in
Gaslighting vs Greenlighting: It’s all about control Read More »
When we think about how trauma effects the brain, we don’t necessarily think about emotions. We tend to associate emotions with the heart. Certainly we feel emotions in our hearts. But we also feel them in our skin, hair, lungs, muscles, gut, and throughout the rest of our bodies. Even though we feel emotions all
Understanding emotions Read More »
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to dive deep into how trauma transforms our brains, and why it’s important for us to understand it in order to heal. This is the first in a four-part series on trauma and the brain. The human brain is very much like a computer. It does what we
How we get trapped in toxic circumstances Read More »
What would a world without shame look like? There’s no way of knowing for sure, of course, because shame currently permeates every level of our culture. If you look at every instance of human suffering – big and small – at the root of it is not anger, not sadness, not envy, not even fear.
Live a life without shame Read More »
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word “fight.” We fight for a cause. We fight for a marriage. We fight against darkness, or as some religions call it, “the enemy.” The angry cousin of fighting, of course, is “attack.” Our way of life is under attack. Our rights are under attack. Our freedoms
Stepping beyond a warrior mindset Read More »
My community had a rough week. We yelled at each other. We let our big feelings get the best of us. Feelings were hurt. Friendships ended. It doesn’t really matter what happened. It’s the universal story of our times. This is our Zeitgeist – the mood of the moment. If it hadn’t been this, it
On growing pains, dark times, and beginning again… Read More »
I talk a lot in Redefining Love about the Three Pillars of Boundaries, Accountability, and Grace. As a review, these three principals must be in balance both internally, towards self, and externally, towards others in order to maintain peace in your complex relationships. So the key is to learn to identify which of the Three
Relational Shame Cycles Read More »
There are a lot of big feelings flying around out there lately. Understandably so. Our consciousness is overstimulated with local, national, and worldwide news that has all our systems on high alert. It’s crucial that we understand how our body is designed to respond to our circumstances, so we can be healthy and regulated as
Managing anger and other big feelings Read More »
