quotes, metaphors, and everyday observations related to my self-care journey
Resources & Meditation
Healing Personal Trauma & Delivering Trauma Informed Care
Feeling emotional?
Remember that soothing is self care. Dr. Bruce Perry teaches us about using the 6 R's to regulate the nervous system. Trauma healing includes activities that are...
• Relational (safe)
• Relevant (developmentally-matched to the individual)
• Repetitive (patterned)
• Rewarding (pleasurable)
• Rhythmic (resonant with neural patterns)
• Respectful (of the child, family, and culture)
Commit to activities that are rhythmic and repetitive when you are processing super-charged emotions.
Consider a rocking chair, or a swing, or immersing yourself in your favorite music... you can do exercise or projects or notice your breathing... the options are endless, just find that activity that will get you out of your head and into experiencing the present moment.
Set aside 10 or 15 minutes and throw yourself into it completely.
Ready to meditate?
Any activity can be a meditation if you get immersed in something other than your mind chatter. Yep. That's my definition.
All types of meditation focus us on something besides that ever-spinning hamster wheel of mostly repetitive, often destructive thoughts. We are addicted to our thinking!
When we observe our thoughts without engaging them, we can enter the stillness between the thoughts, and that's where the magic is folks.
I think 99 times and find nothing.
I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.
― Albert Einstein
I am a big fan of 90 second mini-meditations, at least once a day, just so long as you actually do them and do them wholeheartedly. Choose your focus and set your timer!
These are my go-to's for mini-meditations...
Listening to the sounds in my environment, especially heat or A/C units, running refrigerators, street noise or my own breathing. Focus so completely on the sounds that you can almost imagine melding with them.
Experiencing my breathing with my complete attention.
Scanning my body for any interesting sensations to observe. Noticing what I feel and how I am holding myself. I let my focus go to any part of my body that seems to be drawing my attention. Then I simply notice and observe with a curious attitude. I don't try to force anything or make anything happen (although I have noticed that I automatically let go of muscle tension when I begin to focus on it).
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself.
When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.
