While the holiday season is often known for its cultural significance of tradition with family and creating fun memories, it can also be a painful reminder of trauma, grief/ loss, and overall family dysfunction. Even if you consider yourself to be lucky to have grown up in an “intact” family or “loving” household, celebrating with family can be stressful.
Letter writing is a powerful modality. Some of my most treasured memories have been hand-written letters from loved ones. Even though the writer may no longer be physically present after death, their words of wisdom are alive in their writings.
Journaling, reflective-thinking, letter-writing, and gratitude visits are some of the strategies that are utilized within developing a gratitude practice. Simply naming three things that you are grateful for is not enough.
Gratitude journaling is a great practice that can be utilized as part of developing a daily gratitude practice.
Safety and stabilization are a core component of trauma-related work. For individuals who have experienced trauma, memories may present as intrusive– showing up, repeatedly and without notice as a reminder to traumatic event (s).
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines trauma as a “an emotional response” to a terrible event like an accident, rape or natural disaster. You may have directly experienced a terrible event, learned about a terrible event happening to a close friend/ family member, or had a frightening experience in which there was actual or threatened death, injury, or violence.
Postpartum is the magical time when you have your baby and you can finally sleep again and all your dreams are coming true – right? If you are a (new) parent – you probably laughed and / or scoffed at that statement.
CARE is “outside the box” to eliminate boxes as gender does not fit neatly into an either-or checkbox.
Just like we can hold onto physical items that clutter our life, so can we hold onto relationship clutter.
A community that experiences collective trauma again and again. Communities of color have been especially hit hard by COVID-related deaths, followed by the killings of George Floyd and Daunte Wright.
