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Sundown Healing Arts

Intuitive, compassionate bodywork for trauma

Articles by Topic


 •  Acceptance  •  Body  •  Boundaries, Full Self  •  Emotions  •  Find Support  •  Hard Times, Abuse  •  Healing Tools  •  Relating  •  Self-Trust  •  Survival Tools  •  Trauma Effects, PTSD  •  Wider Narratives •

  • Acceptance

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

    • Unhook from Projection
      When we stop fighting our shadows, we see ourselves and the rest of the world.

    • The Tyranny of Normal
      Each body is normal in relation to itself, despite the myths we persist in believing against all evidence.

    • Integration: Live into Both/And
      There is deep healing when we invite a younger part closer and say, "You matter. Your experience matters. Your truth matters."

    • The Heartbreak of “Why?”
      Other people's cruelty is not our fault.

    • Take a Break from Healing
      You do not have to be perfect to be treated with respect.

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

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

    • Respect Your Reservoir of Pain
      Most of us carry old pain from the twists and turns our lives have taken.

    • • Back to top •
  • Body

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

    • Claim Your Space, Breathe into Your Back
      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.

    • Change the Rules, Inhabit Your Pelvis
      Bring awareness to the bony structure of your pelvis.

    • How to Irritate Your Nervous System
      Seeking irritation might be easier and more informative than seeking calm.

    • Let Your Jaw Speak
      Physical movement in your avenue of expression creates sound. Immobility is silent.

    • Sense Your Spine’s Support
      When we trust our structure, our whole body relaxes, expands, and breathes more easily.

    • Arms Relate to the World
      Our arms are structured to fluidly express our physical boundaries.

    • Legs Dance, Kick, Run
      Our legs are on our sides, like our arms, and start above the hip crease.

    • Explore Uncurled Posture
      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.

    • Humans Allowed Full Body
      Claim your inner terrain for yourself - it is your birthright.

    • Protect Your Irritated Nervous System
      When the nervous system is chronically irritated, it transmits sensations more strongly and is more likely to interpret strong sensations as pain.

    • Find Calm: A Polyvagal Primer
      Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory explains our nervous system and helps us make sense of our behavior.

    • Find Calm: Practice Rest and Regulation
      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.

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

    • The Push/Pull of Touch
      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.

    • Get to Know Your Guts
      Reconnect with your belly through kind touch and specific knowledge about the organs inside.

    • Let Go for More Sound
      As we restore our ease of movement, we restore our ability to be our complete selves out loud.

    • Self-Care for Sticky Lungs
      With your hand as an anchor, your relaxed breathing provides movement to gradually stretch and release adhesions.

    • • Back to top •
  • Boundaries, Full Self

    • Choose Your Traditions
      Notice your expectations and desires around the winter holidays.

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

    • Haunted by Shame? Change Your Committee!
      Imagine living your life with a fully supportive, encouraging, and approving internal committee.

    • Inner Child Lost -n- Found
      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.

    • Say Yes to Your Boundaries
      Boundaries are already part of us, a flexible container for our sensations, emotions, and preferences, separating "me" from "not-me".

    • Just-Right Visibility
      Explore your skills at both hiding and shining.

    • Healthy Entitlement: Discern Your Domain
      We are entitled to complete autonomy over the insides and surfaces of our bodies.

    • Cherish Your Limits
      Paying attention to our limits helps us compassionately care for ourselves.

    • The Perils of Nice
      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.

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

    • Your Body Is Your Ally
      When you tend to your body with generous care, you practice feeling better and receiving kindness right now.

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

    • In Search of Self-Confidence
      Treat yourself as if you deserve to exist.

    • Inhabit Your Surface
      Experiment with working less hard for a while.

    • Within Reach of Your Comfort Zone
      When we have access to a secure home base, we can explore and take risks more freely.

    • Care for Hidden Ruptures
      Imagine if we collectively made it a high priority to help children and adults heal from attachment wounds.

    • • Back to top •
  • Emotions

    • Counter the Feelings Police
      Emotions are meant to move. Giving them more space allows them to flow and change, peak and ebb.

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

    • Depression: Natural Response to Trauma
      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.

    • Resonate With Loneliness
      Every time we turn toward our own experience with warmth, we strengthen our Inner Nurturer.

    • Make Room for Grief
      Grief is as individual and as universal as a fingerprint.

    • Lift the Anger Lid With Care
      Anger can fuel change toward more kindness, more truth, more respect, and more justice.

    • Anchor Terror in Time
      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.

    • • Back to top •
  • Find Support

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

    • Add Peace to Your Life
      How to make peace a priority now, in the midst of struggle.

    • Disclose Pain, Find Support
      Describe the support you want, and increase the odds of receiving it.

    • A Boundary-Nourishing Healer Search
      Finding providers of caring touch and coming to trust them can be a journey in itself.

    • 100 Percent On Your Own Side
      Your Inner Nurturer knows you're doing it right.

    • Deepen Your Roots, Stretch Your Branches
      Grow into a shape defined by your history and desires, like a tree becoming more intricately itself every year.

    • First-Aid for Desperate Moments
      These phrases provide first-aid assistance when you need to feel better right now.

    • Add Ease to Anniversaries
      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.

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

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

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

    • How to Leave Your Practitioner
      "Can we talk about what completing treatment and stopping would look like?"

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

    • Solid Support for Change
      When we have more inner and outer resources, it is easier to take risks and try something new.

    • • Back to top •
  • Hard Times, Abuse

    • Emotional Abuse: You Deserve Better
      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.

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

    • Not Again! Tame Your Fiercest Patterns
      When your recurring pattern has you in its claws, hold still and move in.

    • Demand Respect, Not Victim-Blaming
      You are already enough. No one deserves abuse for any reason.

    • Step Away from Double Binds
      How to identify and respond effectively to contradictory demands.

    • “Trust Me!” and Other Red Flags
      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.

    • Spiritual Abuse: Take Back Your Faith
      To heal from spiritual abuse, look inside for what you know for sure.

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

    • Surrender Without Shame
      Your painfully remembered surrender was a successful strategy to survive into this present moment.

    • Truth Across Lines of Authority
      We live in a web of privilege and marginalization that affects how we express boundaries.

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

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

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

    • The Betrayal of Not Being Heard
      We all deserve to have our distress heard and heeded.

    • The Puzzle Box of Shame
      Shame heals in many small steps.

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

    • How to Resist Enough
      Resisting oppression can be affirmative, creative, connected, nourishing.

    • Mend What You Can Reach
      When we take small actions within our reach, we build sustainability, community, and hope.

    • Agency in a Time of Pandemic
      Recognize the quiet heroism of staying home.

    • Adapt to New Risks
      Allow yourself to be a beginner at handling this pandemic.

    • Wear a Mask to Belong
      Protect the community you already belong with.

    • Rock the Boat About Racism
      White supremacy is a catastrophe for everyone. Gently gather your courage, step forward, and talk about racism.

    • Within Sight of Relief, Pause
      Acknowledge losses and longings, and give yourself time to rest and recover.

    • A Harvest of Understanding
      With kind eyes, look back at this pandemic year.

    • Talk About Abusers
      Most people are complex mixtures of good and bad intentions, benign and harmful behaviors.

    • Restore Your Kind Attention
      Denial buys time to gather resources and absorb information more gradually.

    • • Back to top •
  • Healing Tools

    • Meditation: Safe Space for Noticing
      Meditation is simpler and more welcoming than you might think.

    • The Joy of Maintenance
      Enjoy maintenance tasks as affirmations of presence.

    • Create: Walk into Fog
      When you create, you are making your way across an unknown foggy landscape one decision at a time.

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

    • Decision-Free Zone
      Listen for what is true for you with a clear boundary that action is off the table.

    • Navigate Change: Mind the Gap
      When we move mindfully through small and large gaps, we create space in our lives for healing.

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

    • All Done! Tools for Rapid Change
      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.

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

    • Check In With Your Chakras
      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.

    • Weave Your Body Whole
      Kabbalah helps us weave the bits of ourselves back together.

    • Heal Around the Edges
      Trauma heals at the borders between comfortable and uncomfortable.

    • Presence After Trauma: Introduction
      Becoming present is an ongoing exploration of willingness to accept what is, and willingness to allow it to change.

    • Find Your Way to Rest
      Rest because it nourishes you and adds enjoyment to your life.

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

    • • Back to top •
  • Relating

    • Compassion for the Drama Triangle
      The Drama Triangle model, applied with compassion, can help you change recurring conflicts.

    • Apologies: Good, Bad, and Abusive
      Carefully crafted apologies can open the door to healing, or, with different intent, open the door to continued abuse.

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

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

    • Sensitivity Survival Tips
      Sensitivities challenge us to assert our body's needs rather than go along with the crowd.

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

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

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

    • The Sacred Work of Showing Up
      Emotional labor is the detail work of caring, of noticing, of paying attention.

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

    • The Right Distance from Family
      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.

    • Grow Away from Enmeshment
      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.

    • Support a Friend in Crisis
      "I'm here to listen."

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

    • Intervene for a Better World
      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.

    • Kindness, Not Contempt
      In this time of isolation, simply acknowledging someone with kind eyes is a gift.

    • • Back to top •
  • Self-Trust

    • Sensitivities: Your Self-Care Guide
      Sensitivities can be a valuable guide for moving toward your ideal environment.

    • Invite Your Longing to Tea
      What can you learn from sitting with longing rather than immediately fulfilling or suppressing it?

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

    • Many Voices, All Valid
      Greet all parts of yourself with compassion to feel the validation you seek.

    • Connect with Your Complex Voice
      Humming can heal the isolation of trauma.

    • Permission to Stop Beating Yourself Up
      Here is your Official Permission to believe you are good enough for self-compassion right now.

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

    • Discover Your Core Commitments
      What do you reach toward no matter how many obstacles stand in your way?

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

    • Stand in Your Story
      It is healthy to value your own viewpoint, no matter how personal and emotional.

    • Serenity Through Your Locus of Control
      One of the central tasks of healing is to reassign fault and power.

    • Trust Yourself Despite Everyday Gaslighting
      Imagine a kind friend saying, "I believe you. It’s not you. You’re doing all the right things."

    • • Back to top •
  • Survival Tools

    • The Gift of Resistance
      Resistance carries the gift of information from our deeper selves.

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

    • Tell a Story about Denial
      The positive aspects of denial, and a writing exercise to reduce some of its frustrations.

    • Behind the Curtain of Obsessive Thoughts
      How to quiet those painful repeating trains of thought and see what is behind them.

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

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

    • • Back to top •
  • Trauma Effects, PTSD

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

    • Ups and Downs of Healing from Trauma
      What to expect during the process of healing from trauma and some tips to get through the hard parts.

    • Flashbacks: Experience Distress in Safety
      Flashbacks help you integrate traumatic memories. Learn how to recognize and respond to them as part of your healing.

    • Anxiety: Your Relaxation Coach
      Interrupt anxiety with acceptance and understand its role in your body.

    • Remember at Your Own Pace
      Trauma is overwhelming, but healing doesn't have to be.

    • Frozen! Thaw from Surrender
      When you give yourself full permission to feel helpless and frozen, it paradoxically creates space for healing and effective action.

    • Safety in Your Bones
      Safety is an internal experience, a skill to be learned and a choice to be made.

    • Effects of Sexual Assault
      Survivors face denial, hostility, and pressure to consider themselves less important than the perpetrator.

    • Relax For Your Life
      Relaxation is surrender, not to someone else, but to your present truth.

    • Exit Emergency Mode
      What if this problem is already solved?

    • Rest at Sleep’s Threshold
      Whether you sleep or not, night can be a time for rest, contemplation, and listening inside.

    • Triggered! Now What?
      Suddenly we are defiantly thirteen, or playfully four, or speechlessly afraid when we would prefer to be competent adults.

    • Name Memories Without Words
      Flashbacks to preverbal memories are intense, all-consuming, boundaryless.

    • Not Alone with Your ACEs
      A large majority of people have had Adverse Childhood Experiences, which directly affect our health.

    • • Back to top •
  • Wider Narratives

    • Prefer Narratives with Hope
      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.”

    • Relieve Pressure: Replace Should with Could
      "Should" makes us look over our shoulder to see if we are good enough yet. "Could" invites us to look inside instead.

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

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

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

    • Good Enough for Mistakes
      We can use our skills and resources to recover from mistakes and integrate them into the flow of life.

    • Loosen Inner Deadlock
      Inclusive solutions emerge from listening deeply to all our needs and fears.

    • The “Good Person” Badge
      Thanks to each of you for working so hard to be a good person.

    • Prefer Narratives with Hope, Updated
      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.”

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

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

    • Accessible for This Starfish
      When one person feels more welcome and safe, they can take more action and inspire others to action.

    • Let Life Flow Forward
      Inhabit the moving present rather than the frozen past.

    • • Back to top •

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This practice is closed. Thank you to all the clients who have come in over the years. I appreciate your courage and trust. Click here for practitioner referral list. I am returning to my previous career of computer programming, and my previous home of Oakland, CA.

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  • Acceptance (9)
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  • Hard Times, Abuse (26)
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Jenny Davidow, author of “Embracing Your Subconscious”

Wellspring of Compassion provides a masterful view of the many facets of trauma, while at the same time offering kindness, compassion and warmth. Non-judgmental and non-clinical, Wellspring of Compassion will give you the tools and resources to shift from mere survival to being able to compassionately reconnect with yourself, your body, and your life. Continue Reading (click twice)

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