“Beneath the surface of the protective parts of trauma survivors there exists an undamaged essence, a Self that is confident, curious, and calm, a Self that has been sheltered from destruction by the various protectors that have emerged in their efforts to ensure survival. Once those protectors trust that it is safe to separate, the Self will spontaneously emerge, and the parts can be enlisted in the healing process (van der Kolk, 2020).

From van der Kolk, McFarlane, and Weisaeth (1996)

“Despite the human capacity to survive and adapt, traumatic experiences can alter people’s psychological, biological, and social equilibrium to such a degree that the memory of one particular event comes to taint all other experiences, spoiling appreciation of the present.” (Page 4).

“Their expectations of themselves and of their culture becomes part of the traumatic experience…society becomes resentful about having its illusions of safety and predictability ruffled by people who remind them of how fragile security can be. The combination of the wish of the bystanders not to be disturbed by the raw emotions of injured people, and the problems of victims in articulating what they feel and need, can make it extremely difficult for the victims to stay focused on working through the impact of the trauma.” (page 27).

David Kessler

“Judgment demands punishment.”

Gabor Maté

“Not every story has a happy ending … but the discoveries of science, the teachings of the heart, and the revelations of the soul all assure us that no human being is ever beyond redemption. The possibility of renewal exists so long as life exists. How to support that possibility in others and in ourselves is the ultimate question.” (Maté, 2021).

The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretation of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meaning we’ve created. Unwittingly, we write the story of our future from narratives based on the past…Mindful awareness can bring into consciousness those hidden, past-based perspectives so that they no longer frame our worldview. ’Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present…Until you reach that point, you are unconscious.’ …In present awareness we are liberated from the past” (Maté, 2011).

Thich Nhat Hahn

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Thich Nhat Hahn said, “Man is not our enemy. Our enemy is confusion, hatred, violence, injustice, ignorance, discrimination, misunderstanding,” (Power of Forgiveness, 2008).

Ryan North

“Our brains are wired for connection, but trauma rewires them for protection. That’s why relationships are difficult for wounded people.”

Nate Postlehwait

Our world is full of adult bodies walking around with wounded little kids inside of them thinking they created the harm done to them. Look closely at the adults who are struggling and you will see the version of that small child who would give anything to no longer carry that lie. It’s clear people are hurting at levels I’ve never seen.

 They are wrestling with their mental health, loneliness, and the exhaustion is setting in from being in the throes of tension with so much uncertainty. I want to do my best to provide some relief to each of those especially those doing healing work. I’ve never met someone who identified their childhood trauma and did not assume they somehow created it or it was their fault.

 If you can take this one reframe of that shame and understand that under no circumstances are children able to create being harmed by others, this could be a gateway to more breathing room for the inner child inside of you.

 That kid in you who experienced harm outside of their control had no coping skills to process that harm or make sense of it. Their only option is to adapt to that pain and that could include denial, self-blame and/or survival mode. This is the only option. That younger version of you has carried this pressure and absolute lie and that one lie is shaping other heartache.

 For any younger version of you that was traumatized, they must hear from you the harm done to them was not their fault.

 If we lived our entire lives believing these things were our fault, it’s going to have an impact on how we show up and often what we struggle with.

 It was not possible for you to be responsible for what happened to you as a kid. You’ve lived the tight rope of believing you were responsible and that tension must stop.

 Please breath in this truth: “Any blame I’m allowing my inner child to carry ends today.”

 I will no longer allow them to feel additional burdens from experiences they were never supposed to know.

Earnie Larson’s DVD “Unresolved Anger” (1990). 

 “Anger is always around hurt—Anger is an emotional response to perceived injustice. Anger is always a justice issue. We don’t want to go back and touch that hurt, but if we don’t, it owns us. Unresolved anger will dictate the quality of our lives forever. Hurt people, hurt people. There’s a big difference between intellectually understanding anger and emotional healing—we have to emotionally heal the wounds.”

Janina Fisher article, A Sensorimotor Approach to Dealing with Self-Hatred,  helps us look at self-loathing.

“Clients are often so mired in self-hatred that (therapists) best efforts to support a sense of self-worth only seem to dig the hole of judgment and self-loathing deeper. For some, the very prospect of self-acceptance can feel repulsive and deeply anxiety provoking. In these cases, an intense battle is often going on deep within. The client comes to therapy hoping to feel better, safer, more fulfilled, only to find that emotional vulnerability, self-acceptance, and pleasure or spontaneity feel frightening or shameful. Every step forward leads to a step back—the therapist’s compassion and encouragement of self-acceptance is regularly met by the client’s “default setting” of alienation and self-hatred. Sometimes the war may be literally between life and death—as when part of the client wants to live, while another lobbies for suicide as the ultimate protection against overwhelming feelings.”

John Legend (AZ-Quotes, 2021)

A just society is not one built on fear or repression or vengeance or exclusion, but one built on love. Love for our families. Love for our neighbors. Love for the least among us. Love for those who look different or worship differently. Love for those we don’t even know.

Kenneth and Mamie Clark (Libquotes, 2021).

A racist system inevitably destroys and damages human beings; it brutalizes and dehumanizes them, blacks and whites alike.

Peter Levine Quotes (Levine, Goodreads, 2021):

“Although humans rarely die from trauma, if we do not resolve it, our lives can be severely diminished by its effects. Some people have even described this situation as a “living death.”

“The symptoms of trauma can be stable, that is, ever-present. They can also be unstable, meaning that they can come and go and be triggered by stress. Or they can remain hidden for decades and suddenly surface. Usually, symptoms do not occur individually, but come in groups. They often grow increasingly complex over time, becoming less and less connected with the original trauma experience.”

“I have come to the conclusion that human beings are born with an innate capacity to triumph over trauma. I believe not only that trauma is curable, but that the healing process can be a catalyst for profound awakening—a portal opening to emotional and genuine spiritual transformation. I have little doubt that as individuals, families, communities, and even nations, we have the capacity to learn how to heal and prevent much of the damage done by trauma. In so doing, we will significantly increase our ability to achieve both our individual and collective dreams.”

“Trauma has become so commonplace that most people don’t even recognize its presence. It affects everyone. Each of us has had a traumatic experience at some point in our lives, regardless of whether it left us with an obvious case of post-traumatic stress. Because trauma symptoms can remain hidden for years after a triggering event, some of us who have been traumatized are not yet symptomatic.”

“Highly traumatized and chronically neglected or abused individuals are dominated by the immobilization/shutdown system. On the other hand, acutely traumatized people (often by a single recent event and without a history of repeated trauma, neglect or abuse) are generally dominated by the sympathetic fight/flight system. They tend to suffer from flashbacks and racing hearts, while the chronically traumatized individuals generally show no change or even a decrease in heart rate. These sufferers tend to be plagued with dissociative symptoms, including frequent spacyness, unreality, depersonalization, and various somatic and health complaints. Somatic symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, migraines, some forms of asthma, persistent pain, chronic fatigue, and general disengagement from life.

Gabor Maté (Maté, AZ Quotes, 2021).

In Canada my book (In the realm of hungry ghosts) has been praised as “humanizing” the hard-core addicted people I work with. I find that a revealing overstatement—how can human beings be “humanized,” and who says that addicts aren’t human to begin with? At best I show the humanity of drug addicts. In our materialist society, with our attachment to ego gratification, few of us escape the lure of addictive behaviors. Only our blindness and self-flattery stand in the way of seeing that the severely addicted are people who have suffered more than the rest of us but who share a propound commonality with the majority of “respectable” citizens (Mate, 2020, p. xv).

A hurt is at the center of all addictive behaviors. . . The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.

The very same brain centers that interpret and feel physical pain also become activated during experiences of emotional rejection. In brain scans, they light up in response to social ostracism, just as they would when triggered by physically harmful stimuli. When people speak of feeling hurt or of having emotional pain, they are not being abstract or poetic, but scientifically quite precise.

In the real world there is no nature vs. nurture argument, only an infinitely complex and moment-by-moment interaction between genetic and environmental effects.

Gabor Maté (Maté Connectivity Counseling, 2020)

It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour.

The DSM … defines attention deficit disorder by its external features, not by its emotional meaning in the lives of individual human beings.

 I believe that ADD can be better understood if we examine people’s lives, not only bits of DNA.

Love felt by the parent does not automatically translate into love experienced by the child.

Whatever the hopes, wishes or intentions of the parent, the child does not experience the parent directly: the child experiences the parenting.

When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion.

We readily feel for the suffering child, but cannot see the child in the adult who, his soul fragmented and isolated, hustles for survival a few blocks away from where we shop or work.

Bessel van der Kolk Quotes (van der Kolk, Goodreads, 2020).

We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.

As the ACE study has shown, child abuse and neglect are the single most preventable cause of mental illness, the single most common cause of drug and alcohol abuse, and a significant contributor to leading causes of death such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and suicide.

Psychologists usually try to help people use insight and understanding to manage their behavior. However, neuroscience research shows that very few psychological problems are the result of defects in understanding; most originate in pressures from deeper regions in the brain that drive our perception and attention. When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.

The contrast with the scans of the eighteen chronic PTSD patients with severe early-life trauma was startling. There was almost no activation of any of the self-sensing areas of the brain: The MPFC, the anterior cingulate, the parietal cortex, and the insula did not light up at all; the only area that showed a slight activation was the posterior cingulate, which is responsible for basic orientation in space. There could be only one explanation for such results: In response to the trauma itself, and in coping with the dread that persisted long afterward, these patients had learned to shut down the brain areas that transmit the visceral feelings and emotions that accompany and define terror. Yet in everyday life, those same brain areas are responsible for registering the entire range of emotions and sensations that form the foundation of our self-awareness, our sense of who we are. What we witnessed here was a tragic adaptation: In an effort to shut off terrifying sensations, they also deadened their capacity to feel fully alive.

The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable, and unbearable. Each patient demands that we suspend our sense of what is normal and accept that we are dealing with a dual reality: the reality of a relatively secure and predictable present that lives side by side with a ruinous, ever-present past.

In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.

I urge you to find the books and websites in the references that follow. There is so much to learn, and it can truly change the way you think, the way you live and love. Thanks

AZ-Quotes. (2021). Retrieved on 04/24/2021 from https://www.azquotes.com/author/26738-

Bonhoeffer. (2008). The power of forgiveness. A film by Martin Doblmeier.

Brink, S. (2016). What happens to the body and mind when starvation sets in? Retrieved on 1/1/2021 from  https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/01/20/463710330/what-happens-to-the-body-and-mind-when-starvation-sets-in

Carver, J. M. (2011). Love and Stockholm Syndrome: The mystery of loving an abuser. Retrieved on 12/28.2020 from https://counsellingresource.com/therapy/self-help/stockholm/

CDC Center of Disease Control (2020). Retrieved on 12/28/2020 from https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-deaths.html#:~:text=Excessive%20alcohol%20use%20is%20responsible%20for%20more%20than,of%202.8%20million%20years%20of%20potential%20life%20lost.

Cherry, K. (2020) What is perception? Retrieved on 1/11/2021 from https://www.verywellmind.com/perception-and-the-perceptual-process-2795839

Cloud, C. (2018). Does alcohol lead to gun violence? Retrieved on 12/28/2020 from https://addictedtoalcohol.com/information/alcohol-and-guns/

Connectivity Counseling (2021). Retrieved on 4/24/2021 from https://connectivitycounselling.com/10-favourite-quotes-from-dr-gabor-mate/#:~:text=%2010%20Favourite%20Quotes%20from%20Dr.%20Gabor%20Mate,we%20examine%20people%E2%80%99s%20lives%2C%20not%20only…%20More

Feldman, K. (2020). Florida corrections officer charged with second-degree murder after allegedly beating inmate to death. Retrieved on 1/1/2020 from https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-florida-inmate-murder-riley-20201111-iyycn5myzzg77cdgivvgmsc2wy-story.html

Good Therapy. (2021). ACES Study. Retrieved on 3/18/2021 from https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/ace-questionnaire#:~:text=Development%20of%20the%20ACE%20Questionnaire%20The%20ACE%20study,out%2C%20even%20though%20they%20were%20successfully%20losing%20weight.’

Graham, A. (2018) Mental health, substance abuse treatment shortage blamed for prison overcrowding. Retrieved on 1/1/2021 from https://www.rocketminer.com/news/mental-health-substance-abuse-treatment-shortage-blamed-for-prison-overcrowding/article_18a47e60-58fc-5c06-b812-d3219f092aae.html

Hubl, Thomas. (2021). The power of collective healing. Retrieved on 3/21/2021 from https://www.thomashuebl.net/products/the-power-of-collective-healing-upgrade-package

Human Rights Watch (2021) Prison Abuse: How different are U. S. Prisons? Retrieved on 1/1/2021 from https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/05/13/prisoner-abuse-how-different-are-us-prisons#

Ivtazan, I. (2016). Dangers of meditation. Retrieved on 3/29/2021 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindfulness-wellbeing/201603/dangers-meditation

Kessler, D. (20201). David Kessler and Brené Brown on Grief and finding meaning. Retrieved on 2/7/21 from https://Brenébrown.com/podcast/david-kessler-and-Brené-on-grief-and-finding-meaning/

Koenig, F. (2019). The problem with chronic positivity. Retrieved on 3/1/21 from https://www.redbluffdailynews.com/2019/07/23/the-problem-with-chronic-positivity/

Larson, E. (1990). DVD. Sold at https://www.hazelden.org/store/item/11384?Unresolved-Anger-DVD

Levine, P. (2021). Goodreads. Retrieved on 1/3/2021 from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/142956.Peter_A_Levine

Libquotes. (2021) Retrieved on 4/24/2021 from https://libquotes.com/kenneth-and-mamie-clark

Luna, A. (2021). Family: How to overcome the shame of being an “identified patient”/black sheep.  Retrieved on 1/9/2021 from https://lonerwolf.com/identified-patient-black-sheep/

Maté, G. (2021) Goodreads.  Retrieved on 1/3/2021 from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4068613.Gabor_Mat_

Maté, G. (2020). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. North Atlantic Books, CA, The Ergos Institute, CO.

McLeod, S. (2018). Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. Retrieved on 1/1/2021 from https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html#:~:text=For%20Erikson%20%281958%2C%201963%29%2C%20these%20crises%20are%20of,healthy%20personality%20and%20the%20acquisition%20of%20basic%20virtues.

McLeod, S. (2020).  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved on 1/1/2021 from https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#:~:text=It%20is%20important%20to%20note%20that%20Maslow%27s%20%281943%2C,model%3B%20both%20developed%20during%20the%201960s%20and%201970s.

Miller, W. R. (2019). Enhancing Motivation for Change in Substance Use Disorder Treatment. SAMHSA. Retrieved on 03/28/2021 from https://store.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/d7/priv/tip35_final_508_compliant_-_02252020_0.pdf

NICABM (n.d.). A QuickStart guide: How to work with the traumatized brain, by Ruth Buczynski with Bessel van der Kolk. Retrieved on 11/15/2019 found at https://yourtraumahealing.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Quickstart.pdf

Phillips, S. (2018). Narrating healing: From no words to your words.

Postlethwait, N. (2021). Remember-who-you-are. Retrieved on 2/7/2021 from – FEBRUARY 2021 – – Remember who you are (remember-who-you-are.net)

Steele, K, Boon, S,  and van der Hart, O. (2017).  Treating trauma-related dissociation.

Van Derbur, M. (2003). Miss America by day: Lessons learned from ultimate betrayals and unconditional love. Oak Hill Ridge Press; Denver, CO.

Van Derbur, Marilyn.  Author of Miss America by Day.  www.MissAmericaByDay.com

van der Kolk, B. A., McFarlane, A. C., & Weisaeth, L. (Editors). (2007). Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body and society. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

van der Kolk, B. A., (2014). The body keeps the score. Penguin Group, New York, NY.

van der Kolk, B. A. Goodreads. (2020). Retrieved on January 1, 2020 from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/290396.Bessel_A_van_der_Kolk

Zorthian, J. (2019). Inmate died after 7 days without water in Milwaukee Jail, prosecutors say. Retrieved on 1/1/21 from https://time.com/4753586/miluakee-inmate-died-jail-dehydration-terrill-thomas/