As you move through difficult, triggering events in the present, bring along all the healing tools you have learned over time.

We all deserve medical care, and it can take many small steps to find and trust the care we need.

We can kindly see that everyone has a mix of strengths and weaknesses.

Inhabit the moving present rather than the frozen past.

Denial buys time to gather resources and absorb information more gradually.

Imagine if we collectively made it a high priority to help children and adults heal from attachment wounds.

Contact with nature can steady your nervous system and counter a sense of isolation and unreality.

Most people are complex mixtures of good and bad intentions, benign and harmful behaviors.

When one person feels more welcome and safe, they can take more action and inspire others to action.

When we have access to a secure home base, we can explore and take risks more freely.

Rest because it nourishes you and adds enjoyment to your life.

When we allow uncertainty and hold our assumptions more lightly, we make room for change and hope.

Experiment with working less hard for a while.

With kind eyes, look back at this pandemic year.

Most of us carry old pain from the twists and turns our lives have taken.

We embody hope when we keep moving forward, one stubborn step after another, like walking through steady rain.

Try a new narrative: “My perceptions and responses make sense. I am intrinsically good. I am doing my best with the resources and knowledge I have.”

Acknowledge losses and longings, and give yourself time to rest and recover.

Thanks to each of you for working so hard to be a good person.

In this time of isolation, simply acknowledging someone with kind eyes is a gift.

Terror moves us to act in the present, shows us where kind attention is needed to heal our past, and directs us to prepare for the future.

White supremacy is a catastrophe for everyone. Gently gather your courage, step forward, and talk about racism.

Protect the community you already belong with.

Anger can fuel change toward more kindness, more truth, more respect, and more justice.

Allow yourself to be a beginner at handling this pandemic.

With your hand as an anchor, your relaxed breathing provides movement to gradually stretch and release adhesions.

Recognize the quiet heroism of staying home.

Inclusive solutions emerge from listening deeply to all our needs and fears.

When we take small actions within our reach, we build sustainability, community, and hope.

As we restore our ease of movement, we restore our ability to be our complete selves out loud.

Treat yourself as if you deserve to exist.

Reconnect with your belly through kind touch and specific knowledge about the organs inside.

When we have more inner and outer resources, it is easier to take risks and try something new.

When the need for touch has been met well enough, with kindness and safety,
we accept the ongoing need as naturally as we accept the need to breathe.

We can use our skills and resources to recover from mistakes and integrate them into the flow of life.

The more we sense into our present environment and the people around us with caring, the less we impose our world view on others.

Each of us can take time to soak up relief, hope, and ease when they arise.

As the nervous system heals over time, our window of tolerance widens for minor infractions, and we can intervene more calmly and skillfully for larger issues.

Learning to manage conflict with care is a lifetime project for each of us.

“I’m here to listen.”

Grief is as individual and as universal as a fingerprint.

“Can we talk about what completing treatment and stopping would look like?”

Healing practitioners can provide a calm refuge for overwhelmed survivors by offering a stable container around logistics, emotions, and the relationship.

Helpers remove obstacles and add nourishment and support. They help us become more ourselves, rather than transforming us into someone else.

When the first people to care for us also hurt us, of course it will be difficult to manage relationships with practitioners.

As you repair your boundaries and sense of self, rather than feeling woven together with someone else, you will gradually feel more solid in yourself.

Whether we connect with our parents every day, once a year, or not at all, we can reduce the internal charge we carry toward them.

As your Inner Guardian becomes more integrated into the present, you can offer a more balanced, skillful response to present-time threats.

Every time we turn toward our own experience with warmth, we strengthen our Inner Nurturer.

When we practice non-ableist language, it gives us more room to be imperfect humans, internally and externally.

When we invite people to be on the same side with collaborative stories, we open the door to more connection in our lives.

You are not broken. Your responses make sense. As you find ways to sit with inner terror and misery and loneliness for as long as they are there, they will gradually shift and make room for new feelings.

When you tend to your body with generous care, you practice feeling better and receiving kindness right now.

To connect more directly with our bodies just as they are right now, we can bring more awareness to eating, hunger, and fullness.

When we can be a kind witness for our hurting selves, we can disentangle painful feelings from the time of year that brings them up.

Resisting oppression can be affirmative, creative, connected, nourishing.

When we do not constrain ourselves to be nice, we can step into the power of showing up as our authentic selves kindly and creatively.

When we can sit with disappointment, we find our own balance between acceptance and efforts toward change.

As we look at the world with more relaxation and clarity, we see more of the beauty and safety available to us.

We thrive on positive feedback, with the occasional bit of corrective negative feedback thrown in.

Even if we missed out on learning how to be calm as babies, it is not too late for our nervous systems to learn about rest and regulation as adults.

Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory explains our nervous system and helps us make sense of our behavior.

“Should” makes us look over our shoulder to see if we are good enough yet. “Could” invites us to look inside instead.

Paying attention to our limits helps us compassionately care for ourselves.

We are entitled to complete autonomy over the insides and surfaces of our bodies.

Emotions are meant to move. Giving them more space allows them to flow and change, peak and ebb.

As you move through difficult, triggering events in the present, bring along all the healing tools you have learned over time.

Becoming present is an ongoing exploration of willingness to accept what is, and willingness to allow it to change.

When the nervous system is chronically irritated, it transmits sensations more strongly and is more likely to interpret strong sensations as pain.

Try a new narrative: “My perceptions and responses make sense. I am intrinsically good. I am doing my best with the resources and knowledge I have.”

Imagine a kind friend saying, “I believe you. It’s not you. You’re doing all the right things.”

I stand with fellow victims and survivors and tell you that you do not need fixing.

Shame heals in many small steps.

Trauma heals at the borders between comfortable and uncomfortable.

We all deserve to have our distress heard and heeded.

A large majority of people have had Adverse Childhood Experiences, which directly affect our health.

We all deserve protection for our needy, vulnerable places as well as recognition of our strengths.

Kabbalah helps us weave the bits of ourselves back together.

Emotional labor is the detail work of caring, of noticing, of paying attention.

When we sit patiently with uncertainty, we make room for a new pattern to emerge.

Claim your inner terrain for yourself – it is your birthright.

You do not have to be perfect to be treated with respect.

Flashbacks to preverbal memories are intense, all-consuming, boundaryless.

Other people’s cruelty is not our fault.

One of the central tasks of healing is to reassign fault and power.

There is deep healing when we invite a younger part closer and say, “You matter. Your experience matters. Your truth matters.”

The chakra system helps us focus on one kind of healing at a time, and notice what is going well in addition to what is difficult.

The first step toward an easier road might be permission to make choices that lessen pain.

Consent is an unforced moment-to-moment agreement to participate in a specific activity.

The sensation might be, “Oh, I didn’t realize I was holding there!” as a shoulder drops, or “I have more room than I thought,” as a hip moves back.

Each body is normal in relation to itself, despite the myths we persist in believing against all evidence.

When we allow all our conflicting feelings to be present, drop what isn’t ours, and imagine the problem is already solved, we can emerge into new terrain.

Suddenly we are defiantly thirteen, or playfully four, or speechlessly afraid when we would prefer to be competent adults.

In the face of non-response, we can choose to inquire, wait, or write off the interaction.

It is healthy to value your own viewpoint, no matter how personal and emotional.

Whether you sleep or not, night can be a time for rest, contemplation, and listening inside.

Our legs are on our sides, like our arms, and start above the hip crease.

There is no tone calm enough to express uncomfortable truths to someone with the power to refuse to hear.

Our arms are structured to fluidly express our physical boundaries.

When we trust our structure, our whole body relaxes, expands, and breathes more easily.

What if this problem is already solved?

When we stop fighting our shadows, we see ourselves and the rest of the world.

Physical movement in your avenue of expression creates sound. Immobility is silent.

Relaxation is surrender, not to someone else, but to your present truth.

When we acknowledge defensiveness, we can open into curiosity and maintain connections with people around us.

Change in a victim cannot fix a perpetrator’s problem. We all have vulnerabilities, and we deserve to be treated with kindness around them.

We live in a web of privilege and marginalization that affects how we express boundaries.

Survivors face denial, hostility, and pressure to consider themselves less important than the perpetrator.

This person, this being, is filled with radiant love, approval, and pleasure at your very existence.

Sensitivities challenge us to assert our body’s needs rather than go along with the crowd.

We instinctively approach a frightened animal with slow, gentle movements and a soft voice. Traumatized humans need the same gentle approach.

If you know someone in an abusive situation, express your trust in their essential strength and capacity to find their way.

Listen inside, explore options, and take self-protective action with empathy for others.

When we move mindfully through small and large gaps, we create space in our lives for healing.

Resilience repeats across generations as survivors teach their strengths through stories and behavior.

Your painfully remembered surrender was a successful strategy to survive into this present moment.

Seeking irritation might be easier and more informative than seeking calm.

What do you reach toward no matter how many obstacles stand in your way?

Sometimes there is no direct path to a goal, and turning away can help you move forward in unexpected ways.

Bring awareness to the bony structure of your pelvis.

Gaslighting teaches you to doubt your perceptions of reality. To repair your self-trust, tune in to your internal signals with interested curiosity.

Here is your Official Permission to believe you are good enough for self-compassion right now.

Humming can heal the isolation of trauma.

Safety is an internal experience, a skill to be learned and a choice to be made.

Carefully crafted apologies can open the door to healing, or, with different intent, open the door to continued abuse.

Listen for what is true for you with a clear boundary that action is off the table.

These phrases provide first-aid assistance when you need to feel better right now.

Self-forgiveness is giving up all hope of being a different person.

To heal from spiritual abuse, look inside for what you know for sure.

As you learn new techniques to manage your emotions, you will no longer need to avoid emotional and physical pain through addiction.

When you give yourself full permission to feel helpless and frozen, it paradoxically creates space for healing and effective action.

Greet all parts of yourself with compassion to feel the validation you seek.

When you create, you are making your way across an unknown foggy landscape one decision at a time.

Grow into a shape defined by your history and desires, like a tree becoming more intricately itself every year.

When you pay attention to red flags, you claim your power to choose, help your self-trust heal, and make room in your life for people who treat you with respect.

How to identify and respond effectively to contradictory demands.

Trauma is overwhelming, but healing doesn’t have to be.

Your Inner Nurturer knows you’re doing it right.

You are already enough. No one deserves abuse for any reason.

Shallow chest breathing takes up as little space as possible. Deeper belly breathing pushes out into the world. Back breathing claims the space that is already yours.

Explore your skills at both hiding and shining.

Interrupt anxiety with acceptance and understand its role in your body.

Enjoy maintenance tasks as affirmations of presence.

When your recurring pattern has you in its claws, hold still and move in.

Boundaries are already part of us, a flexible container for our sensations, emotions, and preferences, separating “me” from “not-me”.

To reduce suffering, relate to pain as a friend bearing a message rather than an enemy to be feared.

Finding providers of caring touch and coming to trust them can be a journey in itself.

Meditation is simpler and more welcoming than you might think.

Tired of figuring out which needs are allowed? Declare a Needs Amnesty Day and welcome them all.

Flashbacks help you integrate traumatic memories. Learn how to recognize and respond to them as part of your healing.

If you often find yourself saying “I’ve tried everything!” or “Don’t leave me!” or “See me!”, visit the Inner Child Lost -n- Found for relief.

The Drama Triangle model, applied with compassion, can help you change recurring conflicts.

Many clients have brought in their pain over neglectful or abusive mothering. May you have many reparative experiences!

Imagine living your life with a fully supportive, encouraging, and approving internal committee.

What can you learn from sitting with longing rather than immediately fulfilling or suppressing it?

While anger can do damage when held in or unleashed on another, it can also lead to clarity and strength when handled with care.

We all dissociate or lose contact with our bodies at times. How to notice and what to do about it.

Sensitivities can be a valuable guide for moving toward your ideal environment.

How to quiet those painful repeating trains of thought and see what is behind them.

The positive aspects of denial, and a writing exercise to reduce some of its frustrations.

What to expect during the process of healing from trauma and some tips to get through the hard parts.

Links between trauma and suicidal feelings and some practical suggestions for yourself or someone who confides in you.

Describe the support you want, and increase the odds of receiving it.

You may have already noticed that arguing with your Inner Critic only leads to louder criticism, possibly about how self-critical you are.

Notice your expectations and desires around the winter holidays.

Resistance carries the gift of information from our deeper selves.

Emotional abuse can be as obvious as name-calling and raging, or it can be so subtle you spend days wondering why you feel so bad.

How to make peace a priority now, in the midst of struggle.

My healing practice is dedicated to Kuan Yin. All those who have suffered trauma need compassion both from within and from others.