On knowing what you want
Trauma can teach us that making decisions is dangerous. When the possible consequences are life-changing, how do we move?
Feeling lonely surrounded by friends
It’s a strange time to feel lonely with lockdown easing. And yet, my heart aches for connection and validation.
The interconnectivity of traumas through time
Trauma comes and goes in waves, ever reminding us of remains unhealed.
Recently, this has been in the linking of similar pains.
Why do I have to heal my trauma?
Trauma is a trendy topic, but why are we all so obsessed with healing our trauma, and do we truly need to?
Is your past a reason or excuse for your present?
I am terrified of using my trauma as an excuse for my current behaviour. How acknowledgment of insecurities equates to making excuses in my head, I don’t know!
The impatience of healing from trauma
Trauma can feel very debilitating, removing agency and control from us.
So when the waiting on feeling better is out of our hands too, we might just lose it a little.
Can you be vulnerable without being a victim?
How does overcome reluctance to let down walls, and what’s wrong with being a victim anyway?
Think you never experienced trauma? Think again!
“I was acting as if I had been traumatised, but I hadn’t. My parents were loving.” So what happened here?
Awareness is the space between thought and action
I finally got to read Moshe Feldenkrais, who is the father of body-awareness exercises. Do you know how they influence our thoughts and awareness and subsequently, heal trauma?
The trauma of multiple nationalities
Nationality-wise I can make claim to 3 countries, but I’m not sure my heart belongs to any of them.
Falling back into trauma
Trauma recovery is kind of my thing. So when a recent trauma threw me, I thought bouncing back would be no biggie.
How movement can heal your trauma
In the mind-body school of trauma, movement is a staple to recovery.
Often we associate bodily sensations with danger, so we disassociate. But gentle movement therapy can help!
What does unhealed trauma look like?
When I was still in the midst of it, I thought trauma could never be healed.
But now I can see how trauma is not a life sentence!
Why we hate people depending on us – or boundaries 101
It’s a primal itch pushing us away from others: the reluctance of being relied upon.
Emotional incest: when children raise their parents
By my mother’s own accord, I raised her. The mother-daughter dynamic became reversed, but why?
Not doing it for praise (and yet…)
This month, I spearheaded the campaign to remove a predator from my social group.
Not only triggering, I am disheartened at how hard I’ve had to fight for this.
One self-imposed crisis after another
My friend looks relieved as he recounts his drama-filled days.“I used to say to my wife ‘we cannot have things too nice because they always go wrong‘.I do not think like that anymore. My days are quiet now, peaceful.”I too identify with his words. Did I love the drama, or did the drama love me?… Continue Reading →
Desire to parent means wanting to BE parented
As a childless gal, I wouldn’t dare to make this statement myself.
Do people have children when they want to be unconditionally loved?
Why exercise feels dangerous to you
If you feel a natural aversion towards fast-paced exercise, you might be faced with unprocessed emotions. How do we still keep moving?
The lines we draw in us after pain
What if under our idea of self there is a hard line, an abyss we ignore? Once we have encountered trauma, this line is often hard to bypass.
Stressed and burned out? 4 tips to heal your soul
Humans today are born into a stressful and trauma-prone environment, forced to deny their true nature. Here are 4 tips to lead happier, healthier lives.
Negative thinking will heal you
Does mainstream optimism exclude realities we avoid facing? Do we have enough confidence in ourselves to admit all truths?
Shane Dawson and trauma-blaming *TW pedophilia*
If you watch Youtube, you will know Shane Dawson. Recently he has used his childhood sexual abuse as an excuse for offensive jokes which hurts all victims.
Addiction and dating apps: the fast and intense
Has there has ever been this much supply and demand on dating apps? I wonder if we should be more careful in giving our heart’s attention away.
Reverse Engineering: When yoga & meditation won’t do it!
How come our body and the external world do not feel safe, and how can we still learn to quieten down when yoga and meditation won’t do it?
Practical tips to lighten your heart off anger
When wrong has been done to us, strangely we have a tendency to hold on to anger. It can feel like taking back power, but here are some tips to let go.
Chronic guilt and the fox in the morning
I had registered the yelling of the cats long before I actually woke up. An incessant, high-pitched sound of three cats, all gathered on my balcony.
Tales of the anxious-avoidant attachment style
I’m desperate for romance and intimacy, but as soon as people get close to me I either push them away or get really obsessive? Disorganised attachment baby!
The illusion of being uniquely broken
Surely we are suffering because something wrong happened to us that was completely unique, unfair and unavoidable. Or is it?
When your gut instinct and heart collide
We all desire something from time to time that we know deep down is wrong. How do we handle this turmoil of emotions, and which way do we go?
Raising kids? Avoid this ONE THING
It’s very simple advice, and most parents go the other way. Raising kids has a million rules, but there is only one to follow to assure a loving upbringing.
How to stop proving and instead improve yourself
Do you find yourself stuck in a loop of needing external validation and betraying your own needs to get it? Here’s how to finally tackle our dreams.
Love and guilt are neighbours in me.
Is it bad that I cannot distinguish them? I grew up with them being interchangeable. I think myself in love but really, I feel too guilty to leave them.
9 essentials tips for a true apology
It’s often hard enough to get ourselves to apologise, but did you know there are rules to it? To truly mend relationships, here are some tips.
Empath or codependent, which one are you?
The lines between empathy and codependency are blurred for many of us. Are you feeling more than you have to, and can you assert yourself?
Feeling rejected? Childhood abuse and abandonment
Nobody deals well with rejection and abandonment. If you’ve suffered from childhood trauma and CPTSD, there’s additional hurdles to conquer.
Recovering from growing up too quickly
Were you the mature child in school? With traumatic childhood experiences, one learns to grow up far too quickly.
To be right or to be free, that is the question of trauma
Children of dysfunctional families learn to “lawyer up” for every single conversation. Why is this ultimately backfiring on our happiness?
How working with your felt sense will save your life
Trauma leaves us numb and foreign to our body, and there is no healing without coming home to it.
Fearful? Anxious? Use your stress to create beauty using RAIN
It’s much easier to tell a loved one that everything is going to be alright when in fear compared to telling ourselves. Can we ever truly become our own best friend?
Our flaws are superpowers yet not controlled
It’s like my soul has these gorgeous church windows, but I can’t see the colours. By being introspective about my resentments, I’m wiping them one by one.
The truth revealed to my childhood abusers – their response?
It was a sunny Sunday morning, and I was walking to a busy cafe to tell my parents about my childhood abuse.
Am I in love or in trauma?
Do you find yourself attracting the same kind of partners? Trauma feeds trauma
Parenting problems? How to heal intergenerational trauma
Oh the irony of parents blaming their children for their outbursts!
Fight your instincts and love your abusers!
Yarris, wrongfully convicted of murder for 22 years, refused to wish ill on his abusers. I would have become like them, he said.
Conquering my void inside with awe-inspiring confessions
‘How to deal with the void inside/ the need to run away’.My friend crumbled up the note I wrote for our topic meeting today. I held my breath.The room was small today, the bad weather keeping away everyone but the regulars.I didn’t mind, I needed to hear from people who had been travelling this road… Continue Reading →
Stuck in the Dark Night of the Soul
Long before mental health became a hot topic, desperate souls were said to be going through the dark night of the soul.
Somatic experiencing changed my life (or how I learned to be at home in my body)
It’s 7:30 at night, and this all too familiar unease sets in again. A restlessness, a feeling that whatever it is, I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Yet I stay slouched on the couch. And that’s where somatic experiencing comes in. Over the years, I’ve turned from an avid novel-reader to an… Continue Reading →
I’m so terrified of being a bad mother, I’d rather not be a mum at all sometimes
I was watching a mother-daughter duo on the tube today, how carefully the mum would adjust her daughter’s woollen hat, and started welling up with tears. She was clutching her little one’s hand tightly even sat down, as if she was terrified of loosing her amid the rush hour madness. I sympathised, thinking “if I… Continue Reading →
The healing effects of pointless, tangible art – stop procrastinating, create your own therapy!
Hobbies should be something that allow you to lose yourself in the activity, something that brings you pure joy and has no other other purpose entirely.
How to never practise self-abandonment again
Children of dysfunctional homes often end up repeating the same relationship patterns they learned early on, first of all with themselves. This is what feels safe and known; our nervous system and brain is still stuck in fight-or-flight mode and cannot distinguish toxic patterns from healthy ones. We practise self-abandonment before others do.Did you have… Continue Reading →
Depression taught me to live again
Last summer, my 2-year depression came to a head. I took myself to A&E and refused to leave, knowing that if I did, I would be all out of options with my suicidal depression. Previously, therapists had sent me away, stating that my problems were above their pay grade. Yoga had been helpful to the… Continue Reading →
Gratitude is an action – or how to do a gratitude journal properly
A friend of mine recently shared in my fellowship her discovery: gratitude is an action, not a feeling. Denominating it as a mere emotion degrades gratitude, and it changed the way I write out my daily (well, weekly) gratitude journal. No longer is it enough to be grateful for my home, my friends, and my… Continue Reading →
Emotional sobriety – the holy grail of any recovery
In my own journey of processing childhood trauma and addiction I’ve come across the term ‘emotional sobriety‘ multiple times, and its poetry struck me. In all the meetings I’ve been to recently, I have not met a single addict with a happy upbringing. So after all, being sober isn’t enough anymore, now I’ve got to… Continue Reading →
How to stop outsourcing your wellbeing
At the fragile 26 year mark of my life, I finally found what adulthood truly means to me (whether I want it to or not): Stop outsourcing your personal responsibilities and wellbeing That means my career is no longer my employer’s job, my health no longer my GP’s and my happiness no longer my friend’s…. Continue Reading →
Taking Christmas off people (or a good idea with bad timing)
For starters, I am working today. In a hospitality job no less, so people can not be avoided (not five guys but I liked the photo I took there after work). I made sure to get a job in time for the holidays, because for the first time, I was not going to make a… Continue Reading →
