“Once, I ran from fear so fear controlled me. Until I learned to hold fear like a newborn. Listen to it, but not give in. Honour it, but not worship it.” #HealingTrauma
“Fear could not stop me anymore. I walked with courage into the storm. I still have fear, but it does not have me.”
“Once, I was ashamed of who I was. I invited shame into my heart. I let it burn. It told me, "I am only trying to protect your vulnerability". I thanked shame dearly, and stepped into life anyway, unashamed, with shame as a lover.”
“Once, I had great sadness buried deep inside. I invited it to come out and play. I wept oceans. My tear ducts ran dry. And I found joy right there. Right at the core of my sorrow. It was heartbreak that taught me how to love.”
“Once, I had anxiety. A mind that wouldn't stop. Thoughts that wouldn't be silent. So I stopped trying to silence them. And I dropped out of the mind, and into the Earth. Into the mud. Where I was held strong like a tree, unshakeable, safe.”
“Once, anger burned in the depths. I called anger into the light of myself. I felt its shocking power. I let my heart pound and my blood boil. Listened to it, finally. And it screamed, "Respect yourself fiercely now!".
"Speak your truth with passion!". "Say no when you mean no!". "Walk your path with courage!". "Let no one speak for you!" Anger became an honest friend. A truthful guide. A beautiful wild child.”
“Once, loneliness cut deep. I tried to distract and numb myself. Ran to people and places and things. Even pretended I was "happy". But soon I could not run anymore. And I tumbled into the heart of loneliness.
And I died and was reborn into an exquisite solitude and stillness. That connected me to all things. So I was not lonely, but alone with All Life. My heart One with all other hearts.”
“Once, I ran from difficult feelings. Now, they are my advisors, confidants, friends, and they all have a home in me, and they all belong and have dignity.”
“I am sensitive, soft, fragile, my arms wrapped around all my inner children. And in my sensitivity, power. In my fragility, an unshakeable Presence.”
“In the depths of my wounds, in what I had named “darkness”, I found a blazing Light that guides me now in battle. I became a warrior when I turned towards myself. And started listening.” #YouBelong
- Jeff Foster
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Carl R. Rogers (1902-1987) - Quotes on Being and Becoming: #HealingTrauma
“In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?”
“People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don't find myself saying, "Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner." I don't try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.”
“On one fine spring day, I was sitting on a Central Park bench and two women were sitting one bench just to my right reading their newspapers. Suddenly, one of them cried out, “Sophie, can you believe this! The story I’m reading here, oh my God! #HealingTrauma
This young boy, seventeen years old mind you, the same age as my Jonathan, he’s struggling with ideas about suicide. Seventeen years old, his whole life before him and he wants to kill himself. What would lead a boy to this?”
“Such a young boy, Bessie?”
“Yes. My God.”
“He must have some type of mental illness.”
“Oh, you’re right, Sophie. I just glanced at the next paragraph, and a psychiatrist explains that the boy has a mental illness called major depressive disorder.”
“If patients were powerful rather than powerless, viewed as interesting individuals rather than diagnostic entities, if they were socially significant rather than social lepers, if their anguish truly and wholly compelled our concerns, would we not seek contact with them?
The facts of the matter are that we have known for a long time that diagnoses are often not useful or reliable, but we have nevertheless continued to use them. We now know we cannot distinguish sanity from insanity. It is depressing to consider how that information will be used.
Not merely depressing, but frightening. How many people, one wonders, are sane but not recognized as such in our psychiatric institutions? How many have been needlessly stripped of their privileges of citizenship from the right to vote and drive?
“Why are people so uncomfortable in their own skins that they need to escape themselves, even at the risk of self-harm? What engenders such unbearable pain in human beings that they would knowingly risk their very lives to escape it? #HealingTrauma
“We need to talk about what drives people to take drugs,” the famed trauma psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk has said, pointing out that there is almost a direct correlation between childhood trauma and addiction.
“People that feel good about themselves don’t do things that endanger their bodies… Traumatized people feel agitated, restless, tight in chest. You hate the way you feel. They take drugs in order to stabilize their bodies.”
***Trigger warning***: I cried last night for the first time in a long time. I was tagged in a post where a women was bashed by her partner. The mother said police protected the man, not her daughter, who was now in hospital, since she tried to take her life.
A brave young survivor who had also experienced DV and had been suicidal, shared a song she wrote to comfort the mother and daughter. I opened the song to read the words. They brought me to tears. The young survivor apologising to other women who experience DV, for her silence.
This survivor said her dad once hand cuffed her, when she said she was depressed and suicidal. Here is a brave young survivor comforting a mother in distress, by sharing her lived experience and her song. I told this survivor I was proud of her. I then slept to reset my mind.
“Blue Knot provides a safe space for survivors to access the support and tools they need to heal from the impacts of trauma, and for those supporting them to access the strategies and resources they need themselves.”#BlueKnotDay#MentalHealth#TraumaInformedCommunity