Trauma can be hard to get over - whether it is abuse, war PTSD, rape or other the emotional scars can last a long time and affect all parts of your life. I remember being hit by a classmate when I was 8 years old just because he could, and I was afraid of people who looked like him for years. I also got teased for being effeminate at high school - which took me until I came out trans about ten years ago to deal with. Maybe these are small trauma compared to what others have and they affected me a lot, living in fear. Living in love space is much better. So this week’s Wednesday Gathering on new research on healing trauma is interesting.

Here in Chile I traveled to Iquique in the north coast near Peru. The land here is a desert right up to the beach - in fact I think that nearby is the driest place in the world. It is weird driving by sand and rocks with no plants and yet all that water is right next to it. I thought that might be how the Earth looked billions of years ago before plants and animals moved from the oceans to the land... or how Mars with water might have looked as the sand was red in color.

I have been practicing living my life with ellipses (...) - that means I don’t plan out months in advance but leave space (the ...) in my life story for new stuff to occur. Often chance meetings and synchronicities lead to exciting new things. I think in these times of changes and chaos leading up to 2012 this is a good way to live. Be flexible and follow your heart over your head - intuition is much better at dealing with chaotic times I feel.

This entry was posted on September 23, 2011 at 5:25 PM and has received 1027 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This Wednesday gathering we learn about the latest research on emotion and psychological trauma and how to heal from it with Deborah Hughes MA.

In his poem on Healing, D. H. Lawrence writes:  "I am not a mechanism, an assembly of various sections.  And it is not because the mechanism is working wrongly, that I am ill.  I am ill because of wounds to the soul, to the deep emotional self....." 

Each and every day we are confronted with images and stories of overwhelming emotional, physical and psychological experience.  And many of us have had encounters with that which disrupts or overwhelms our capacity to right ourselves, to resume normal living, to form new connections.

What can we do to meet these experiences, contain their impact and transform that which otherwise might leave us lost, wandering, or diverted into meaningless activity, acting out or addiction?  Our responses to trauma are not indicators of a broken mechanism but of one adapting to survive.   How do we--individually and in community--begin to reclaim agency, direction, and meaning after catastrophic encounters with what is far beyond our immediate capacity to metabolize?

Please join us for an introductory exploration of the juncture formed by weaving together some of the earliest and the most recent developments in the study of neuroscience, traumatic injury, and attachment. And then a discussion of how they are being re informed by understandings--ancient and new--of the power of relationship, of certain alternative healing modalities, of yoga, of meditation and of the stories we tell ourselves about our experience.

Deborah S. Hughes is a Librarian and Information Specialist, a storyteller, a yoga teacher with certifications that include Yoga Nidra/iRest and Trauma Sensitive Yoga, a long time student of Jungian and Archetypal psychology and a Site Coordinator for the Traumatic Stress Studies Certificate Program of the Trauma Center at JRI (the Justice Resource Institute).  And she is most deeply committed to synthesizing the work of those teachers whose lives and work keep saving her body, soul, and imagination.

You can contact her at deborahshayne(at)aim.net

This entry was posted on September 23, 2011 at 5:23 PM and has received 1452 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.