This article discusses racism and white supremacy as seen in the US, and is applicable in the rest of the white-dominated world as well. Notice your inner responses as you read. Do you feel numb and bored? Do you feel angry and defensive? Do you feel relief because someone is naming your experience? When you… Read More
Articles
Wear a Mask to Belong
Many survivors of childhood abuse and neglect have an ongoing ache to belong, an unassuaged longing for the warmth of secure attachment. We develop strategies both to hide our vulnerable hearts and to reach out for connection. We hide our core self to be acceptable and we expose our rawness to be visible. Belong right… Read More
Lift the Anger Lid With Care
When you get angry, does an internal lid clamp down, perhaps before you even notice you are angry? Or does your anger spill out in a way that feels overwhelming, making you wish for a lid? You may have absorbed beliefs early on that your anger was bad, or that anger is always abusive, or that… Read More
Adapt to New Risks
How do you relate to risks? Do you think of yourself as risk averse, risk tolerant, risk seeking, or some mixture? Is your approach different for physical, emotional, and financial risks? Risk tolerance is affected by current resources. Can you recover from a bad outcome, physically, emotionally, and/or financially? Do you have friends who cheer… Read More
Self-Care for Sticky Lungs
Healthy breathing is a relaxed symphony of movement. On inhalation, the diaphragm widens and flattens. Each rib traces an arc up and out. The spine gathers to support the ribs. The lungs, anchored at the top near the collarbones, slide down easily along the chest walls to fill the increased space, pulling in a fresh breath. On… Read More
Agency in a Time of Pandemic
We are individually and collectively navigating a bumpy transition from “life as usual” to “life in a worldwide pandemic.” We are adapting to disorienting change as well as managing our emotional responses to this crisis. As the pandemic moves toward us disarmingly slowly and then shockingly fast in its exponential growth pattern, we each make… Read More
Loosen Inner Deadlock
As we navigate life’s choices, we usually reach a decision by a combination of checking inside ourselves, researching options, asking others for advice, and flipping a coin. Sometimes none of that works and we find ourselves deadlocked, unable to settle on a resolution. An inner deadlock can be an intense battle, with constant internal arguments,… Read More
Mend What You Can Reach
“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” —George Eliot, Middlemarch World news is terrifying these days, from… Read More
Let Go for More Sound
Small children shriek happily, or ask embarrassing questions in their carrying voices, effortlessly far louder than the adults around them would prefer. Adults plead with them to use their inside voices. Gradually children learn a quieter register. Sound is created by movement. We can be quieter by using less effort to create less motion, or… Read More
In Search of Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is not just about trusting our ability to accomplish tasks. When we lack self-confidence, we doubt that we deserve love, success, comfort, joy, happiness. At our core, we doubt that we deserve to exist. Kind attention When children receive kind, caring, responsive attention, it reinforces that they are intrinsically valuable and worthy of taking… Read More