Healing from Trauma: “Lessons in Self-Care from a Summer Hiatus” by heard + felt

Excerpts: “Turns out, it is difficult to know what real care looks like if it’s never been modeled or provided for you in any environment . . . Somewhere along the way, my self-care stopped being about ME and became about others — how others thought self-care ‘should’ look, what other people did to practice

Healing from Trauma: “Is America Experiencing Mass Psychosis?” by Nicole Karlis

“Group X, No. 2, Altarpiece” by Hilma af Klint Excerpts: “Given the perturbed psychological state of so many Americans, it is worth asking if something is happening — psychologically speaking — that is causing many Americans to live in very different realities. Psychologists say yes; and, moreover, that what is happening was actually predicted long ago by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung

Healing from Trauma: Touch Dirt

Grass is okay, but soil is far more primal. If you’re feeling disembodied or untethered, get your hands into the earth. If you’re spiraling inward toward self-obsession, turn outward and touch the earth on someone else’s behalf. Here are eight how-to vids. — — — — — — — — — Bonus Reading: “How to

Healing from Trauma: “8 Tips for Taming the Monkey Mind” by heard+felt

An excellent and accessible list, half of which includes neuromotor activities (adding bodily movement to conscious focus). In my experience, the main reasons we overlook these basics are their inherent slowness, contrasted with the manufactured urgency of the online world. The sheer speed with which the internet manipulates our neurotransmitters and conditions us to stay

Healing from Trauma: “The Slowed-Down Thinking Exercise” by Heidi Hanson

Excerpt: “The goal of this exercise is to help our brain remember its natural, relaxed speed of thought. This exercise tends to help simplify the thought process itself, aiding us in going from mental chaos to mental organization and helping with information processing. The secondary gain is to slow down our overall feeling of anxiety

Healing from Trauma: Further Thoughts on Sharon Blackie’s “The Enchanted Life”

When Sharon Blackie talks about the state of embodied enchantment and its components, she says this of the fourth: “Enchantment is an emanation of the mythic imagination, and is founded on an acknowledgment of myth and story as living principles in the world.”  Those same living principles, in a state of genesis or reflection within

Healing from Trauma: Sharon Blackie on Presence, Embodiment, and Slow Living (Part 2)

Excerpted from “The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday” by Sharon Blackie, psychologist and mythologist. (Emphasis mine.) Here Sharon describes the components of enchantment (a state of embodied engagement and healthy association with the natural world). Notice how each component corresponds to an opposite dissociative state — isolation, incuriousness and intolerance of uncertainty,

Healing from Trauma: Sharon Blackie on Presence, Embodiment, and Slow Living (Part 1)

Excerpted from “The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday” by Sharon Blackie, psychologist and mythologist. (Emphasis mine.) Sharon speaks here of enchantment as a state of embodied engagement and healthy association with the natural world. Notice that embodied’s opposite is disembodied, engaged’s opposite is disengaged, and associative’s opposite is dissociative — three states

Healing from Trauma: “Spoon Theory” by Christine Miserandino

Christine Miserandino is a lupus patient who devised an ingenious way of illustrating the priorities, decisions, and compromises inherent in living with a chronic medical condition. You can watch her explain Spoon Theory (https://youtu.be/jn5IBsm49Rk) or visit her website for more comprehensive information (https://butyoudontlooksick.com/). The true genius of Spoon Theory is that it also works within

Healing from Trauma: “Slowing Down to Move Forward: Pacing and Dosing in Trauma Therapy” by Diane Poole Heller

Dr. Heller’s article (https://dianepooleheller.com/slowing-down-to-move-forward-pacing-and-dosing-in-trauma-therapy/) is written for trauma therapists, but I believe it can also be helpful for trauma patients learning to pace themselves in their daily lives — even more so for survivors and detransitioners who are promoting awareness or engaged in activism. If you have access, please engage an ideologically neutral trauma therapist