Can trauma haunt the body the same way it haunts memories? According to Stephen Porges, PhD, not only does the body remember a traumatic experience, but it can actually get stuck in the trauma response mode. So even when life becomes safe, the body still perceives danger and its defenses stay engaged. Why does this happen and what can we do about it? Stephen shares a little background along with his own personal experience with this phenomenon – check it out, it’s just 4 minutes. Click here to sign up. Stephen will tell us more about how the polyvagal theory…

Soldiers in a war zone experience more trauma in a week than many others experience in their lives . . . . . . but it still feels like our tools for treating trauma aren’t quite sufficient. Mindfulness meditation could be a powerful healing intervention – but does it work with soldiers? The early research is promising. It’s still very young. . . but it’s promising. That’s why I thought this study was so interesting. Anthony King, PhD, research professor in the University of Michigan department of psychiatry, led a team to investigate whether mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) could help…

Has anyone seen the Jim Carrey film “Yes Man”? In this film, he decides to change his unsatisfactory life by saying yes to everything. While he ends up modifying his yes stance somewhat, he may have been on to something. Mindfulness practitioners for many years have understood the effects that saying “no” can have on the body, mind and spirit, especially when we are saying no to our emotions. And while we can’t agree to everything in life, the following exercise taken from Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance may help illustrate the effects of saying yes to our emotions: “Sitting…

A recent article in Newsweek “How we narrowly avoided a depression” (Robert J Samuelson – Newsweek 10/12) just caught my attention. Its business commentary but in a way, it relates so directly to our work. Samuelson drew distinctions between 1929 and 2007-09, and talked about The Depression as one of serious economic downturn and paralyzing fear. He adds that “a devastating loss of confidence inspires behavior that overwhelms the normal self-correcting mechanisms . . . normal anxieties are converted into abnormal fears that trigger panic”. He’s talking about society but he might just as well be talking about human nature….