After surviving a traumatic event or experience, it can be incredibly difficult to change how you see yourself. It can become all consuming: Why did this happen? Why did this person do this to me? Why can’t I get over it? Why? Why? Why? It’s true that part of your...
Being exposed to terrorism firsthand (my first significant episode of community violence, to boot) taught me many lessons. Looking back, I wonder what the set-point of my life would’ve been, if you had measured it just moments before the bombs went off. Life wasn’t...
After healing from a traumatic event, one would think a written resiliency manifesto wouldn’t be necessary. You have learned so much, come so far, and may not even recognize the person you were before. You could never forget how you got here. Or could you? A...
This sounded so silly the first time I heard it: Your brain hears what you say. Of course your brain hears what you say, and it hardly needs to hear anyway since whatever I say came from that very same brain. Right? But once I learned this concept in a mindfulness...
Poet and icon Maya Angelou said those words in response to the question: What price have you paid for that freedom? A few days ago I had the honor of hearing leadership speaker and bestselling author Brene Brown speak. She talked about this quote, one I also love, as...
Recovering from trauma is a lot of work. Early on, you probably don’t even realize you’re doing any work. But everything you see and hear and feel, even the stuff that infuriates you or causes you to feel invisible, is helping you heal. Looking back on my early years...
