Selah Trauma Counseling Center

12/25/2025

Merry Wishes from our Selah family to you and yours this Christmas 🎄!

Jen, Jessica, Jodi, Kelsey, Lianna, Lora, & Nef

12/23/2025

A few thoughts as Hanukkah closes and Christmas and Kwanzaa are upon us and there is so much focus on family.

Two (or more) things can exist at the same time. It’s ok to have joy. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to be both. Relationships are complex and have a way of putting you on defense.

We tend to give people an excuse for bad behavior when we don’t trust their capacity to grow. Just because they had a terrible childhood, are older or younger, etc doesn’t mean they get to continue to be a bully or mean. It’s not about trying to convince the person to change, but staying in alignment with you and your values and maintaining (or establishing) a boundary.

Invitation: Practice what you want to say in advance if you expect a confrontation so that you can do so kindly. Less is more. Clear, loving feedback or boundaries and they do not have to agree with you. *Over-apologizing invites debate not respect.

In doing so, you’ll also have an opportunity to hear them. They may need time and space or have much to say in the moment. It’s not ok to be screamed at, mocked, or other abusive behavior and in those cases it’s definitely ok to remove yourself and return to the conversation when both people are in capacity or with a mediator.

Take those pauses. Reflect inwardly. Then carry on.

12/18/2025

12/17/2025

Whether it’s the news, the noise, the end of the year rush, the cold weather, or maybe even the holiday hustle. It can be easy to slip into overwhelm.

Overwhelm is stress kicked up a notch. It’s that extra cup of coffee or energy drink that turns out you didn’t need, later muttering to yourself at 2am, wide awake and another long day ahead. If the overwhelm continues, it moves to harmful, which does move to trauma. Too much, too long, too fast, or nothing in response is interpreted by the body and brain as trauma.

Invitation to check in: How is your posture? Are you hunched over, looking down at a screen sending physiological cues of dorsal disconnection to your brain? Is your body wired & tired? Weary & slow? There’s an invitation by your body if you listen. A stretch, a shake, a long look out the window at nature, noticing the clouds roll by. Or a bit of whimsy, noticing intentionally the beauty around you. Movement is helpful. And remember to speak kindly to yourself.

12/13/2025

Tonight the Geminid meteor shower begins its peak show. Coincidentally, it’s also national hot cocoa day!

It can be difficult to pause when it feels like the world is too much. Or as if joy is a betrayal when in grief. Awe & wonder are part of the resilience package. Gratitude too. We contain more than tragedy and survival; humans are layered and complex from personality down into the cellular level, inter and intra connected.

Sometimes possibility feels unsafe because it is unfamiliar & our brain tends to like patterns & familiar even if it’s not great for us. Awe & wonder, even hope tap into possibility.

If it feels too much, I invite you to take tiny little pockets of it. Like tiny little sips of hot cocoa. Savor the moment, the presence, and carry on.

Invitation to connect: How do you enjoy your hot chocolate? With a little cinnamon, or splash of vanilla or peppermint? Marshmallows - large or tiny? Share your favorite recipe if you’d like in the comments.

Do you have a favorite memory watching falling stars? My grandma would drive us out to the country, park in a pull out. We’d get wrapped up in comforters and lay on the hood of the car to watch the sky put on a show.

12/12/2025

I think we always need this reminder, but especially this time of year. There is so much going on, so many places to be, it feels like so many people to please.

If you have got up this morning and put your best foot forward, that is already the greatest achievement.

You are trying, and that will always be enough x

12/12/2025

At the foundation of our work at Selah 🧠🫀!

Dr. Stephen Porges, developer of Polyvagal Theory, says, "Safety transforms our biology, raising oxytocin and vagal tone, lowering cholesterol, softening the fascia, creating the physiological foundation for recovery."
In other words, safety reshapes the body from the inside out. These shifts give the nervous system the stability it needs to recover and reconnect. Safety is not just a feeling-- safety is the treatment for healing trauma and building back resilience in the nervous system.

If you’re ready to deepen your skillset and learn more about this kind of physiological safety, take the next step by learning at PVI, the founding home of Polyvagal Theory. Earn your Polyvagal-Informed Certificate and join a community committed to changing how healing happens.

➡️ Enroll today: https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/pvi-certificate-course

Spaces are limited in order to create the best possible learning experience for all, so secure your spot today for our next cohort!

12/06/2025

National Grief Week is 2nd - 8th of December every year.

So many types of grief, so many nuances and complexity to loss & change. Grief really feels as if it is ever changing and morphing.

Trauma work involves a lot of grieving. Sometimes that loss is the process, sometimes the work is focused on how to live in the new normal. We don’t have to sanitize it: grief work is messy, hard, and often done in silence or alone. It might look like crying & it might look like criticizing, flirting, doomscrolling, or annoyance. What if we witnessed and tenderly held each other in our grief instead?

A Poem:

No one tells us how often life will feel like a run-on sentence. In the way that grief spills into joy, and joy leaks into fear, and fear lingers in the middle of love.

There are no neat pauses. No full stops.
Just a story that keeps unfolding before we've even learned what the last line was trying to teach us.
By b. ricks

Invitation to explore: Define the types of grief listed in the photo. Are there griefs that you’ve pushed away or didn’t recognize in yourself or others?