• Anxiety,  Coping Skills,  Depression,  DID,  Dissociation,  Trauma

    Beauty after Bruises

    Beauty after Ashes offers information, financial aid and the ability to support the community struggling with complex PTSD, dissociative disorders and DID. DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. It was previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. If people know about it, they generally think of things like “Sybil” or “The Three Faces of Eve.” Those depictions of DID are not quite like what it looks like in real life. A number of people living with DID have had successful careers, are wonderful parents and partners. They bring an incredible amount of resiliency because they have survived the unsurvivable.  Generally, this is a disorder that occurs because of early, pervasive neglect…

  • Anxiety,  BIPOC,  Birth,  Coping Skills,  Depression,  Miscarriage,  Postnatal,  Pregnancy,  Stillbirth,  Trauma

    Supportive FREE Webinar

    Return to Zero: HOPE is sponsoring a free webinar this Saturday, February 27th, 10am PST – – Optimizing Resilience: Mental Health in Black and African American Communities led by Dorienna M. Alfred, PhD. This webinar is intended for both bereaved parents and providers. We hope you’ll join us at 10am PST on Saturday for this important topic. Register here: https://rtzhope.org/webinar

  • Anxiety,  attachment,  Depression,  Relationships

    Great TED talk on the brain, mind, regulation and relationship

    I really enjoy learning more about how the brain works, why grounding and mindfulness and relationships repair and heal our brains especially from childhood trauma. I find the science to be so hopeful and optimistic that instead of learning to cope with trauma, we can heal, truly heal. So I am sharing this video of Dr. Dan Siegel talking about the brain, explaining how it functions and is related to the mind and relationships.

  • Coping Skills,  Dissociation,  Uncategorized

    Did you know this about “grounding” exercises?

    I found some research and articles that talked about how all grounding exercises are not good for all clients. For some people, they have spent most of their lives “out” of their bodies, experiencing themselves as “unembodied.” So grounding exercises that ask clients to do things like body scans or monitor their breathing may find themselves activated. For people struggling with being in their body, I often suggest other types of grounding exercises that have clients focus on outward objects.  Like 5,4,3,2,1 – notice 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can smell. The body…

  • Anxiety,  attachment,  Depression,  Relationships,  Trauma

    This is why I believe in the ACE study and work as a therapist in the area of recovering from trauma

    Here is a video that changed me… taught me that traumatic events, especially in childhood are at the roots of physical, emotional and socio-economic issues. This TED talk by Dr. Nadine Burke Phillip – “How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime”   “Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart…

  • Addiction,  Anxiety,  attachment,  Coping Skills,  COVID,  Depression,  Relationships,  Trauma

    How is COVID affecting your mental health?

    At this point, I do not believe that anyone can deny that COVID has dramatically affected their lives. I hear of stories of adult children who are unable to visit their elderly parents in nursing homes. I know of another family whose mother was hospitalized, and they were unable to visit her during the hospitalization. Visits via online options like FaceTime were attempted, but often the visits did not happen. Nurses were busy and unable to assist elderly clients with the technology needed to facilitate the visits. So loved ones were separated not just by distance but even technology was unable to assist in keeping them connected. The statistics for…

  • Anxiety,  attachment,  Coping Skills,  Depression,  Relationships

    CliftonStrengths

    CliftonStrengths was previously called StrengthFinder. This is an extensive assessment to determine a person’s five top strengths out of 34. Well, you can purchase the entire report for a little more money. Strengths include terms like Achiever, Strategic Thinking, Restorative, Harmony, Adaptability and many more. A person cannot have a poor set of top five strengths! All of them are valuable.  The assessment is used frequently in business environments although I have found it useful for individuals who are looking for a new career, want to improve their relationships, want to work better with their children or figure out how to homeschool more effectively. Basically it finds five strengths that…