When people have had a difficult life they get used to shortening and contracting their breath. The breath can get tangled up in the whole slew of thoughts and feelings and reactions to others that are going on almost constantly. It can be hard to turn the attention inside to notice the breath – right [...]
One of the most painful possibilities for trauma survivors is to be triggered — to go from living in this body, in this experience, in this present moment, to suddenly finding yourself catapulted into fear, terror, numbness, or panic. What might have felt steady now feels enormously disruptive. It can seem like being thrown into [...]
(Today’s blog post is contributed by Anne Hallward, that many of you might know as “Dr. Anne from Safe Space Radio.” She recently did an interview with Matthew Sanford and wanted to spread the word of his incredible wisdom.)I want to introduce you to someone I think will be a joy for you to know [...]
Joyce Growing Thunder Fogarty is part of a lineage of Native American beaders that show every year at Indian Market in Santa Fe. Her dress (shown) took her ten months to create. That’s ten months of 16 hour days. Her mother, Juanita and her daughter, Jessica, helped her create the final dress that was shown at The National Museum of American [...]
Every courageous gesture we make, whether or not we think it’s successful, definitely imprints our mind in a positive way. The slightest willingness to interrupt our old habits predisposes us to greater bravery, greater strength, and greater empathy for others. No matter how trapped we feel, we can always be of benefit. How? By interrupting [...]
Every moment offers us the gift of transformation. We can choose to respond to life by tightening up, hardening, resisting or we can choose to soften, relax into the moment. The first doesn’t seem like a real choice. Our bodies naturally tend to tighten when a blow comes at us. It seems only natural to [...]
A nightmare woke me. I have them rarely at this point in my life (thank goodness.) But this horrid dream was with me, lingering. I felt myself at odds, disrupted, not wanting to sleep, afraid I would reinhabit that world. Rattled I could think of nothing to do, so I sat and watched the [...]
I’m doing a lot of reading and learning as I prepare to bring the Becoming Safely Embodied Skills into an online format. In the last few years I have been fascinated with the new thinking and research on brain development and neuroplasticity. Huh? Basically that means that the brain can change – we can change. What [...]
What a way to start out the New Year — or this new decade — by seeing Avatar. I saw it on New Year’s Eve. It completely opened up my world. It was like I popped by head outside the Cosmic Egg (a la Joseph Chilton Pearce) into a rich, vibrant, dynamic world that was [...]