hope – Page 8 – Unicorn Shadows

The Healing Place Podcast Interview: Joyelle Brandt – Parenting with PTSD

Welcome to The Healing Place Podcast! I am your host, Teri Wellbrock. You can listen in on iTunes, Blubrry or directly on my website at www.teriwellbrock.com/podcasts/. You can also watch our insightful interview on YouTube.

I am grateful to have had the chance to sit down with Joyelle Brandt to discuss her mission of helping those who are parenting with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Thank you, Joyelle, for sharing your personal story and the beautiful work you are doing helping others along their parenting and healing journey. What a gift for those families and the children who will benefit from the steps their parents are taking to heal.

Bio:

“Joyelle Brandt is a self care coach for moms. She specializes in working with mothers who are survivors of abuse, to help them develop a personalized self soothing toolkit for stress management. As aspeaker, mothering coach, and multi-media creator, Joyelle works to dismantle the stigma that keeps childhood abuse survivors stuck in shame and self-hatred. She is the author/illustrator of Princess Monsters from A to Z and co-editor of Parenting with PTSD, the groundbreaking anthology that breaks the silence about the long-term impact of childhood trauma so that parents can break the cycle of abuse.
When she is not busy raising two rambunctious boys, she is most often found playing her guitar or covered in paint at her art desk. You can keep up with Joyelle at www.joyellebrandt.com“

Parenting Coach to survivor mamas, Healing trauma through creativity.Buy your copy of Parenting with PTSDon Amazon Sign up for Joyelle’s newsletter to get the first chapter free!

From Joyelle’s website:

“As a speaker, mothering coach, and multi-media creator, I work to break the silence that keeps childhood abuse survivors stuck in shame and self-hatred. I believe that our stories possess the power to transform our greatest pain into beautiful works of art.“

Find out more about Joyelle’s mission and works of art at www.joyellebrandt.com.

Peace to you all!
Teri

Hope for Healing Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/9813e51db66b/hope-for-healing-newsletter-december-2018

Book Launch Team: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unicornshadows/

The Healing Place Podcast Interview: Suzie Gruber – NARM & Somatic Experiencing

I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful conversation with Suzie Gruber regarding the utilization of NARM (Neuroaffective Relational Model) and Somatic Experiencing, both non-intrusive approaches to healing traumatic events and ACEs (adverse childhood experiences), her personal history with these approaches on both personal and professional levels, along with some joyous laughter throughout.

Bio: Suzie Gruber, M.A., SEP., holds advanced degrees in chemistry & psychology. She spent 15 years in biotechnology before returning to her first love: inspiring people to transform their lives. A Somatic Experiencing and a Neuroaffective Relational Model (NARM) Practitioner in private practice in Ashland, OR Suzie also leads seminars that teach people about complex trauma and the imprints it leaves behind. Additionally, Suzie is the Research Director for the NARM Training Institute and assists NARM practitioner trainings.

From Suzie’s website:

“My deepest passion lies in helping you improve your life today. You have an innate drive towards connection, aliveness, and success, a primal urge that gives you the strength and courage to change, regardless of what you face along the way. I’m here to help you do that.
I came to this place in a kind of circuitous way. After earning undergraduate and graduate degree in Chemistry (Harvey Mudd College and then Princeton University), I spent 15 years in the biotechnology industry working in Operations for start-up companies. Although I was quite successful in my career and I enjoyed the never ending, high energy challenges of start-ups, my first career never quite fit the deeper me. I had to honor my own primal urge to do what I love, help you come alive.
When I learned about peak oil, environmental issues, and the instabilities in our economic system, I knew I had to listen to my own deeper voice. I decided to completely rebuild my professional life from the ground up, first getting a Master’s Degree in Psychology and then becoming a Somatic Experiencing® (SE) practitioner and most recently training in the Neuroaffective Relational Model^TM. I offer a combination of these two modalities because they changed my life. I moved away from feeling crisis-driven on a daily basis, to instead experiencing each day with greater aliveness and success and enjoying more satisfying relationships.”

Find out more about Suzie’s healing work at https://suziegruber.com/

Be sure to download her FREE Stress First Aid Kit ebook, too! https://suziegruber.com/getyourfreebook/

Peace to you all!
Teri

Hope for Healing Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/9813e51db66b/hope-for-healing-newsletter-december-2018

Book Launch Team: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unicornshadows/

Coping Strategy: Stop and Be

Coping Strategy

From my Hope for Healing monthly newsletter Coping Strategy section:

I want to share one coping strategy a month. These are strategies I use (or have used) in my own life as I travel the healing journey. I hope they bring you tranquility, as well!

STOP AND BE

This is a strategy I utilized along my own healing journey. STOP AND BE. At first it was . . . well . . . terrifying. Trying to simply allow and notice the panic symptoms was difficult for someone, like me, who has a propensity for avoidance of feeling scared, anxious, or uncomfortable. Learning to feel comfortable in my own body was a challenge. But, I used my learned coping skills and very quickly developed the skills necessary to simply “stop and be”.

What is Present-Centered Therapy?

What is Present-Centered Therapy?

Present-Centered Therapy is a non-trauma focused treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This therapy modality is called “present centered” as the goal is to focus on the client’s current/present life while recognizing the connection between PTSD symptoms and current struggles. All the while doing this without focusing on past traumatic events.

There are a host of therapy options when it comes to treating PTSD and C-PTSD symptoms and they reside under different treatment umbrellas: medication treatment, trauma-focused therapy, and non-trauma focused therapy.

I have utilized all three! When I was first experiencing severe panic attacks (but, not yet given a C-PTSD diagnosis), I was prescribed anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications. I eventually requested to be weaned off of all medications and challenged myself to learn coping strategies while continuing “talk therapy”. I began psychotherapy with a licensed practitioner in 2013 and we started the process of shining a light on my trauma history. This counselor suggested EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) as an alternative and I moved into that therapy practice. It was there that I started the deep-dive back into my trauma history, reliving traumatic events throughout my sessions. I participated in ninety-eight EMDR and brainspotting sessions which spanned a four-year period.

The goal for YOU (or anyone in your life seeking therapeutic support), is to find what works best for you and your needs. You know YOU best. The key is to research your therapy options, then research therapists who specialize in the treatment you have chosen for yourself. Continue your self-care journey by reading the latest research on brain plasticity (the brain’s ability to change) and evolving therapies.

The Healing Place Podcast Interview: Dean Walker – Living Resilience

* Honestly, this was a difficult interview for me to conduct due to my trauma history and propensity for avoidance. Definitely a tough subject to discuss. Particularly when it came to the subject of “hope”. I am a hope-filled, hope-inspired, hope-flinging soul. Listen in as Dean discusses his book The Impossible Conversation and upcoming book/workbook release this spring. My question to you is . . . #whatishope

Join me in this deep and thought-provoking conversation with Dean Walker about his upcoming book/workbook release (coming spring, 2019), his mission, philosophies, and more!

From Dean’s website:

“Welcome to our Living Resilience website. Founded by renowned author, speaker and life coach, Carolyn Baker and author, resilience coach and transformational training designer, Dean Walker – Living Resilience is an alliance of authors, journalists, health professionals, concerned global citizens, scientists and artists.
What we all have in common is a mutual concern that humanity has conducted itself in such a way (primarily for the past one hundred years) that has landed us in a Twenty-First Century confronting not only vexing problems at every scale of life on Earth, but, more importantly, a set of predicaments that show no sign of relief or solution.”

What Dean has going on at the moment …

The book, released last year, The Impossible Conversation: choosing reconnection and resilience at the end of Business as Usual.
A new batch of online support content, self-paced on demand courses, resilience coaching for individuals, families and organizations, online focused advanced practices.
Safe Circle: An online, free support group that meets on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesday of every month, sign up for the Zoom video call invitations on the website, www.LivingResilience.net.
Podcast: The Poetry of Predicament Podcast – a YouTube channel
@safecircle Twitter
Lastly, and by far the largest project at the moment, a new book and workbook combination, due out early in 2019. These two books are intended to be far more practical for the person who is grappling with finding meaning, purpose and reclaiming agency and right-relationship – in a post-truth, predicament-laden world.

Find out more about Dean’s passionate mission at https://livingresilience.net/

Peace to you all!
Teri

Hope for Healing Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/9813e51db66b/hope-for-healing-newsletter-december-2018

Book Launch Team: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unicornshadows/

The Positivities of Persistence Series

Positivities of Persistence

Introduction

This series will focus on the benefits of being persistent along your healing quest. I will, again, be speaking from experience. Some practical advice mixed with sprinklings of raw truth (those “This sucks and I really want to give up” moments).

This will work best if you have a journal, pad of paper, or Word doc dedicated to this exercise as I will be asking you to keep notes which you will need to refer back to as we progress.

Subtopics will include:

What does persistence really mean?
How do we define positivities?
A checklist of positive outcomes.
Habits and hurdles.
Accountability.
Celebrating goals.
Encouraging one another.
Final checklist.

I look forward to embarking on a Positivities of Persistence journey with you!

Join me on this Positivities of Persistence journey by subscribing to my Hope for Healing Newsletter.

The Healing Place Podcast Interview: Greg Williams – Shattered by the Darkness

I was honored to have Dr. Greg Williams join me for a powerful conversation about his upcoming book release “Shattered by the Darkness: Putting the Pieces Back Together After Child Abuse”, his mission, personal story of triumph, and more!

Per Greg’s website: “Dr. Gregory Williams has written a new book that chronicles his lifelong journey of child abuse and its aftermath. It has taken Dr. Gregory more than 30 years to begin unveiling the horrors of what happened to him throughout his entire childhood. His book recounts the sexual exploitation he endured at the hands of his own father for 12 years.” https://shatteredbythedarkness.com/

Be sure to check out these articles, highlighting Greg’s story, posted in the ACEs Connection community:

Baylor Employee Shares Story of Childhood Trauma in Hopes of Helping Others

Shattered By The Darkness: Powerful book by a humble man on a mission to prevent what happened to him from happening to other children

Baylor College of Medicine students introduced to ACEs science

Peace to you all!
Teri

Hope for Healing Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/9813e51db66b/hope-for-healing-newsletter-december-2018

Book Launch Team: https://www.facebook.com/groups/unicornshadows/

Coping Strategy: Create a Safe Space

Coping Strategy

Borrowed from my February, 2019 Hope for Healing Newsletter.

I want to share one coping strategy a month. These are strategies I use (or have used) in my own life as I travel the healing journey. I hope they bring you tranquility, as well!

Create a safe space for yourself.

This can be a safe space in your mind where you can go when feeling anxious. Mine is a cozy little nook, surrounded by books and filled with a snuggly bed with lots of pillows and blankets, looking out a ceiling to floor window over a brilliant blue ocean, with a calming breeze flowing through the room, and sunlight streaming from behind a lone white cloud. Use as much detail as you can muster. What does the space smell like, what’s the temperature, what’s there in the space? Are you outside or inside? Remember, this is YOUR space. Fill it with you and everything that makes your heart happy.

Or an actual space. Filled with all things comforting, supportive, love-infused, and joyous. Make it about you and your needs. What makes your soul happy? Fill YOUR space with THAT.

What is Exposure Therapy?

What is Exposure Therapy?

(The following article comes from borrowed snippets from a conversation thread in the ACEs Connection community in response to my asking for guidance regarding Exposure Therapy)

“Prolonged Exposure (PE) is the most researched treatment for trauma related disorders around. It is also a “gold standard” treatment – meaning its efficacy is top of the line. Dropout rates for trauma treatments are statistically the same for all approaches. Part of the symptomatology of PTSD is avoidance. That is (the) basis for the prolonged exposure, to have the client face what they are avoiding, especially the more disturbing aspects of the traumatic event(s) as measure by subjective units of distress (SUDs).

PE involves having the client relive the trauma over and over again until SUDs begin to go down. Your homework would include listening to recordings of your sessions outside the treatment room. You may also be assigned to expose yourself to anxiety provoking stimuli outside of sessions based on a hierarchy of fears and anxieties working on the most anxiety-provoking antecedent first. As previously stated, the goal of therapy is to reduce your SUDs level to a manageable point. Even though SUDs were developed by a behavior therapist (the “B” in CBT which is the general classification of PE), the late psychiatrist, Josepf Wolpe, SUDs are also used in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

The research indicates there is no statistically significant (difference) in any of the approaches with the exception of EFT, which doesn’t have a significant research base, though the relatively fewer studies indicate EFT yields promising results.

If you would like more information on PE, you might want to get a hold of a copy of Edna Foa’s, the creator of PE workbook, that is written for PE clients titled Reclaiming Your Life From a Traumatic Experience (2007).”

Please remember: Healing is possible and you are so very worthy of that gift!

The Healing Place Podcast Interview: Krissie Myers – Milestones & Foster Care

Welcome to the Healing Place Podcast! I’m your host, Teri Wellbrock. You can listen in on iTunes, Blubrry or directly on my website at www.teriwellbrock.com/podcasts/.

It made my heart happy to sit down with my friend Krissie Myers to discuss her program directors roles with Milestones, Inc. – an equestrian achievement program – and Kentucky Intensive Family Services foster care agency. You can find out more about Milestone’s wonderful programs and volunteer opportunities on their Facebook page or on their website.

Information on Kentucky Intensive Family Services can be found on their website:

“As a small, non-profit agency, KIFS takes pride in the ability to provide intense, therapeutic, in-home services to foster families and the children placed in their homes. We are very proud of our high success rate of helping children reach permanency, reducing the lingering effects of trauma due to abuse, neglect, and family crisis situations, and enhancing the over-all health, well-being, and life experience of our most vulnerable population.”