Trauma IV
This Blog post is inviting you to read about multi-generational trauma in the promised novel from me, You Were My Mother. It is now listed on my Resource page under Books, contemporary fiction. The cover was designed to illustrate how trauma can shatter the equilibrium of a family. It can and will wreak havoc on one’s assumptive world. What is that? Our assumptive world is what we count on to be true about our loved ones and our lives. It refers also to what we believe will be possible for our future. I did not set out to write a novel. It was not one of my aspirations, even though...
Read MoreCommunity
These are tough times we are in. The normal challenges of life’s passages are compounded by pandemic induced isolation. The core human need for community is heightened by grief, loss, change, and confusion. At the same time, opportunities to gather together in like-minded groups are curtailed by the dictates of public health. Fortunately for women. well-designed and moderated virtual groups (appealing to women 40 and up) have been brought into being by several enterprising and brilliant women. One group, the Woolfers, conceived and articulated by Nina Lorez Collins from New York, quickly...
Read MoreCelebration
Did you know that Celebration is a core human need? I often see people confuse this with partying. Of course you can have or attend a party to celebrate something or someone. But most partying happens because people simply want to change their mood, feel different, be someone else for a while. This is more in the category of a temporary fix than a celebration. Inveterate partiers are generally not happy, neither before nor after the party. No, what I want to talk about here is when we truly have something in our lives that calls for celebration. I have such a thing in my life...
Read MorePodcast Interview
In this week’s episode, we talk with Chaplain Meg Spinella about her work in Hospice care. A really interesting conversation about working with both the patient and the patient’s family. Definitely check this one out.
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Read MoreTrauma III
Nova Scotia is a lovely, peaceful province, hanging off the eastern edge of Canada. Getting there is a deliberate and often challenging intention. It’s known for water views, lots of them, as well as whale watching, hiking, and picturesque cottages. While getting there is difficult, staying there is seductive and the stuff of dreams for hardier folks. With slightly under one million residents, it is small both in area and population, like a very large village made of many smaller ones. Its residents, including the indigenous Mi’kmaq people, have a long and proud heritage of both...
Read MorePandemic
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR These wise words from another time of International upheaval, threat, and loss, can still serve as a touchstone as we navigate a range of events unprecedented in our lifetime. Up to this writing, 20,911 people worldwide have died from Covid-19, of 463,342 reported cases. The number of actual cases is no doubt much higher, even as the death toll mounts by the hour. There is universal agreement among public health experts that “Sheltering in Place” is the best way to slow the spread of the virus. There is...
Read MoreChange
“Change is the only constant in Life.” Heraclitus I used to say that I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into my future. I was no fan of change. That was a fear-driven way of being in the world. It was also a symptom of a victim consciousness. I now see myself as the co-creator of my future, together with the higher powers that work with and for me to bring good things into my life. I have emphatically re-ordered my relationship with change. Having found and practiced another way of looking at the unfolding events in life, looking at them at least with equanimity and...
Read MoreSorrow III
“There’s a hole in the world tonight There’s a cloud of fear and sorrow There’s a hole in the world tonight Don’t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow” The Eagles There’s only one appropriate topic this week for a site that focuses on healing Trauma. Yet, as I say that I know that for the families and communities victimized by the latest mass shootings in America, healing will be a long time in coming, if it comes at all. Indeed, America itself is grievously wounded and torn apart with no healing in sight. This is the fifth mass...
Read MoreGrief II
Last year my life changed forever. I’ve joined that club no one wants to be in – one of my children died. My 36 year old son, Joseph, died of a brain aneurysm. In the first blog on Grief, I noted some skillful ways to help someone who is grieving. The depth of the pain when grieving the loss of a child, including an adult child, requires a degree of compassion and sensitivity that challenges even the most caring among us. Our communication tools can suddenly seem woefully inadequate. I can try to help by relating what people have done that was meaningful to me in the most...
Read MoreTrauma
“Where a man has a certain fantasy, another man may lose his life, or, breach his spirit.” Carl Jung I begin with this quote from Carl Jung to demonstrate that Trauma is endemic in human society. The sense of the word “breach” as Jung uses it here is “rupture.” The aspect of trauma that I’m discussing in this essay is where there is an identified victim or victims and a perpetrator (or perpetrators). Trauma can come from natural disasters, man-made disasters and many natural or everyday occurrences – a child swallowing a bee (natural), or...
Read MoreAttention
The simple act of paying Attention is, arguably, the hardest thing we’re ever called upon to do. The more I learn about paying Attention, the more I realize how often I’m not doing it. I’m not here. Not now. Babies pay attention. It’s not that as adults we never do it. When we do, we have a special name for it. The Zone. We recognize it because everything flows and we experience ourselves at our very best in whatever we’re doing. Is it even possible or desirable to maintain this level of Attention all the time? Probably not. What is possible and desirable is to monitor how often...
Read MoreAddiction
What happens to enslave us to a substance, a person, an activity, a behavior? It may begin with a desire or need to self-medicate, to alter one’s mood or consciousness toward pleasure. Like the attraction of the Ferris wheel, it’s glittery and exciting. It’s fun the first few times. Maybe it’s fun for quite a long time. It’s beautiful. Whether it’s gambling, drinking, drugs, sex. shopping, or a relationship – you’re having the time of your life. What happens when you can’t get off the spinning wheel? When it won’t stop. When it turns faster and faster and it seems like no one is in...
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