Trauma Treatment Collective Therapy Services

06/10/2022

Helloooooo! We hope this message finds you healthy and safe! It's been a wild few months as we make sense of all the shifts and changes that have happened.

As you may have noticed, we have not been on social media. But we are still moving and grooving and holding space for community!

In fact, if you want to catch up with us, we have moved over to Heartbeat, a platform that integrates a lot of different apps with the hopes of intentionally building community together.

If you've missed us, wondered where we went, wanted to say hi, click on the link to join us! We'd love to have you with us! https://yz521.keap-link009.com/v2/click/50cb4702eff22bd2773548d15057fb00/eJyNkEFLw0AQhf_LnEPjRprWgEgIpYTUHkTPsmwGHMzOLttJIJb8d6cqPSl4nfe993hzBkG2LG0PFcwf68JABgkdRUKWJrBY9yUWRWkyGIjf9ymMEarzb86rfrluN3dlBjJHVOL5qW669rh_PbTHTslokxb8J8bcmvLmmrN7rNsDLMufwehJdpNmn6CSNOJlTk86SV7SoPybSDxVeR5YW9AF70cmmVeS7OitJLTi1e3CMKiHJlwpkxNPJFYo8IMLPd43ZV2YrdbZGJH7n0d1OH-XLp_ZzXME

And if this is where we bid you adieu, thank you for the time and energy shared together. Thank you for helping us to learn and grow.

May you be thriving and flourishing (like these peonies) in this season of your journey!

04/22/2022

This simple mental trick helps highly sensitive people turn their "cognitive brain" back on and avoid emotional overwhelm.

04/22/2022

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
Khalil Gibran - The Prophet, 1923.

Joseph Lorusso - Lovers and Lautrec.
josephlorussofineart.com

04/21/2022

We live in a world that celebrates "being okay" and "sucking it up" even when we are hurting, overwhelmed, and sad.

I'm here to remind you that:

It's OK not to be OK.
You are allowed to ask for help.
You are allowed to fall apart.
You are allowed to speak up and advocate for yourself.

You don't have to be okay.
You don't have to hide behind "no worries."
You don't have to be the strong one.

I recently had a client say to me, "I pretend to be OK because I was raised to be strong. I pretend to be fine because everyone around me needs me to be. But I am not OK. I don't know what to say."

Can anyone else relate to that feeling?

This post was some of what I shared with them as thought starters. Sharing it here with you all just in case you need words when they escape you.

Print it out.
Screenshot it.
Save it.
Share it.

Do whatever you need to do to remember that you don't have to say you're okay when you're really not. Being honest and using our words is how we deepen our healing.

Give yourself permission to not suffer in silence.

04/21/2022

Words can, in fact, heal.

04/20/2022

When we simply examine symptoms of narcissism on their own, we lose sight of systems that create such personalities.

04/20/2022

So many of us have been struck by how many parents and caregivers today find themselves facing challenges with their teens. If you are one of these parents, you are not alone - teens all over the world are struggling. Study after study is revealing what many of us already felt: we are in a teen mental health crisis at proportions. Record levels of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts are affecting teens more than ever before and are a cause for global concern.

Many parents and caregivers feel alone and are not sure where to turn.

But a new Summit is working to shift these trends.

Starting April 25 and running through May 4, more than 40 world renowned experts in mindfulness, neuroscience, psychology are coming together for the Parenting Teens in Uncertain Times Summit. This incredible 10-day event is FREE and offers parents the chance to learn from world-renowned experts, connect with other parents going through the same challenges, and develop the confidence to support their teens and families during these times.

We hope you will join us and forward this on to your networks to help get the word out. Together we can make a difference.

Get your FREE ticket here - https://www.supportingteens.com/

04/19/2022

The thread that pulls us from heartbreak to healing is love, says Judy Lief in this practice for working with grief.

04/18/2022

You have romanticised the idea of Obsessive-Compulsive Order.

04/18/2022

We all have to protect ourselves but the question is how. We all construct walls that we believe are castles, though they slowly turn into prisons because we can’t wall out pain and sorrow and loss.

I protect myself from the intensity of life by retreating into the inner dimension. There I wait in the world of being for the storm to disperse. In this way, my castle has clear walls. We often take our walls with us and think we’re free, even though we’re clunking around in a suit of armor that makes life burdensome. Armor, no matter how thin or clear, keeps the air from touching the skin. It keeps aliveness from touching the heart.

For years, I told myself that withdrawing was staying calm and balanced while accommodating was meeting others with no preferences. But there’s a crucial difference between acquiescing to the demands of others and cooperating with life.

Moving through my fears doesn’t mean I have to
absorb or placate the demands of others. Facing my pain doesn’t mean I have to withdraw from what comes my way. On the contrary, I need to open the ancient door of my own making and let life kiss me on the forehead.

The only way we can mitigate these feelings is to let the experience of being human move on through. For the most part, walls are useless. It’s meeting the sensations of being alive that cleanses us and shapes us, the way fast currents scour the
bottom of a river, making the river stronger.

We need to be porous, so that other life can reach us and fill us. This means we have to learn to neither shut ourselves down nor give ourselves away. Closing and opening are both necessary, like inhaling and exhaling. One day years ago I was working at my desk, deeply immersed and yet aware that I was staying there too long. Our sweet Lab, Mira was wagging her tail and pushing a toy
in my lap. My wife Susan had just come home. I thought it is time to put down what I’m
learning and live it.

Always, learn and live. Susan was chopping onions and jazz was drifting upstairs. I’m grateful for those moments in which life pulls me out of my chair.
This is why we love.

# # #

Adapted from The One Life We're Given

04/18/2022