I love how Noel Pearson said Dutton wants to bury Uluru, but the problem is now it’s “alive”. Growing up my mob didn’t see trees and mountains as things that were “alive”. Took me a long time to learn and see and feel that. But he’s right, Uluru and the words have come to life.🧵 And I’ve not seen something that beautiful in my lifetime. On such a grand scale. Normally, it gets corrupted along the way. I’m glad I can see its’ raw and fresh beauty now and pure intentions. I can see the “No” scare campaign attempting to shut it down… But it’s alive.

For years I struggled to sit still, concentrate, do assignments, office work, appointments, registrations, etc. I was easily distracted. I’d procrastinate. A Psychiatrist thought I had ADHD. My attention is great today. There are so many tools. Martial Arts changed my brain. 🥷🇵🇭 It does not need to be Martial Arts, 🧘🏽‍♀️ Mindfulness also changes the brain. Although, some argue that it can be more difficult changing the brain with our minds, because our minds are so flippant (e.g. One minute we feel good. Next minute, we feel awful, so often unreliable).

“A belligerent samurai, an old Japanese tale goes, once challenged a Zen master to explain the concept of heaven and hell. The monk replied with scorn, "You're nothing but a lout - I can't waste my time with the likes of you!" #HealingTrauma His very honor attacked, the samurai flew into a rage and, pulling his sword from its scabbard, yelled "I could kill you for your impertinence." "That," the monk calmly replied, "is hell."

A highlight of my day:

@Lisa_Wilkinson: “So the advances in technology that @ScottMorrisonMP is proposing, you say they’re not enough?”

Former President of Ireland and Chair of The Elders at #COP26, Mary Robinson: “No. No. Not at all. I am not at all convinced.” @Lisa_Wilkinson: “So why do you think @ScottMorrisonMP is relying on those so heavily?”

“Most people going through the immigration process have to do it without Lawyers. They have to do it by themselves. They’re making their last fight against a trained government prosecutor, effectively as being blind folded, with your hands tied behind your back. #HealingTrauma I am a Lawyer and a Law Professor and my wife is as well. I have two brothers who are Lawyers. A sister in law who is a Lawyer. I am surrounded by Lawyers. When I have a legal problem I don’t turn to my family to help me. I hire somebody to do it.

How I Became A Warrior

“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.”

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?”

“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?”

“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.

“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.

***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.

“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 “The tangled knot in Blue Knot’s logo symbolises the tangle of complex trauma while the blue in the logo represents to sky.”#BlueKnotDay #MentalHealth #TraumaInformedCommunity

My website has already had 3,889 visitors. 12,700 views. The top three topics are: “Why I Switched From Self Esteem to Self Compassion?”, “My Crazy Beautiful Story About Psychosis.” and “What Is Trauma Informed World?”. Thank you for learning about #HealingTrauma. 🌺🌿#YouBelong traumainformedworld.com/2021/08/06/why…

First Nations Voices and Solutions Thread:

“Thank you for watching #IncarcerationNation and signing up to #RaiseYourVoice. incarcerationnation.com.au #IncarcerationNation is a story told by First Nations voices. The power of the film reflects the power and resilience of First Nations Peoples - and makes it clear non-Indigenous Australia must listen and be led by First Nations voices when it comes to justice and sovereignty.

I am speechless. I went my own way. I had Psychosis twice trying to figure out this crazy, beautiful, terrifying life. The place we all call home. This year I was asked to be the Psychologist for 35 Indigenous Health experts at Closing the Gap on Indigenous Health. #HealingTrauma I was asked to be on an expert panel about a new Adult Mental Health Service. I was invited to be interviewed on Brainwaves about my lived experience of Psychosis. I have been invited back onto Brainwaves for trauma informed tools for wellbeing. As if all of this isn’t enough...

Why the divide and conquer mindset? Since we know it kills countless lives? It has destroyed this planet? Most people would agree that human being always want more. We consume, consume, consume. Then we consume some more. 1/20 #HealingTrauma What most humans beings do not realise, is that we do not want more. What we are really after is all: Freedom. Except we can never have “all” physically or psychologically. Why not? Our body has a boundary. Our mind also has a boundary. 2/20

Three Phase Approach to Healing Trauma: Some trauma experts say it is dangerous to open pandora’s box. Some reasons: psychosis, sessions are not long enough, there are not enough sessions, or we have to return to a dangerous environment, 1/38 #HealingTrauma vulnerable and have not yet established a sense of stability, clarity, the ability to regulate our emotions, or connection and belonging. So for such reasons there is a Three Phase Approach to Trauma:

1.Safety and Stabilisation
2.Processing
3.Integration 2/38

Do five world views help or harm Australia in the 21st century? I live and breathe Psychology: I’ve taught it at University. I’m a front liner for First Nations in community. I have a lived experience of Psychosis. We absolutely can recover. 1/27 #HealingTrauma So it breaks my heart to see someone who can’t call Australia home.

We all belong. #WeAllBelong

Addiction illustrates this beautifully: Renowned addiction expert Dr Gabor Mate says: “The first question you must ask is not why the addiction, but why the pain?” 2/27

What is Intimacy and Play?

So, for simplicity, try conceptualise mental illness as living within our threat system (i.e. fight, flight, freeze, or collapse). Think of depression as freeze or collapse; anger, anxiety, terror as fight or flight. 1/12 #HealingTrauma Remember threat system is only intended for a real life and death threat. So the two fundamental questions to ask are:

1. Is this moment safe or dangerous?
2. Is this moment real or my imagination? 2/12

So I was flying home this afternoon from my usual work in community with First Nations Australians. Reflecting on my short life of 37 years. Then I thought of a cool question to ask. What’s something funny, beautiful or quirky that you have experienced from trauma? 1/14 I’ll go first. So during my first episode of Psychosis I decided I had enough with civilisation. I sold all my belongings and bought one of those army back packs, a spear gun to catch fish, and some tins of food. Since I sold my car, I paid a stranger to drive me to near 2/14

I have a crazy beautiful story about Psychosis. It was also absolutely terrifying. For those who have not read my threads on Psychosis, I did my PhD on the neuroscience of emotion. I asked the question where is emotion in the brain? Hemispheric asymmetry: the divided brain. 1/46 Well it turns out it’s not just in the brain. It is in our whole body. It also turns out this is a living cosmos. Bessel van der Kolk pioneered Psychiatry with The Body Keeps the Score. However, my third year of my PhD was in 2011, so these ideas were not fully mainstream. 2/46