Healing from Trauma, Abuse, and Neglect
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.
Few, if any, individuals will escape this life without some scars from trauma, abuse, and/or neglect. Whether our trauma has been a recent car accident, a robbery, or a history of childhood abuse and neglect, our wounds like the knotholes of a tree, are carried in our minds, bodies, and spirits.
There are a wide range of stressful experiences that could result in someone being traumatized. [Read More]
Trauma is the result of exposure to an overwhelming and inescapable event which overcomes a person’s ability to cope. Many different factors can affect how someone responds to a traumatic event. [Read More]
Because the traumatic experience is so complex, everyone responds to trauma differently. Some individuals are able to adapt to terrible life events with flexibility and creativity. For many others, however, the traumatizing experiences overwhelm their inner capacities to cope and effectively respond.[Read More]
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Childhood abuse (physical, emotional, psychological, and/or sexual) and neglect can leave deep wounds. Survivors typically struggle with concerns around safety, trust, feelings, self-esteem, boundaries, relationships, personal power, and self-care. Healing from abusive experiences can sometimes be a long journey, but it can lead to experiences such as empowerment, joy, peace, and aliveness.
However horrible our childhood experiences may have been, we do not have to let those pieces of our history define who we are in this moment, nor who we will be tomorrow or in the future. Though we will always wear our scars from these traumatic experiences, we do not have to identify ourselves by the wounds they represent.
Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced that we are loved.
The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.