A 🇨🇦

I have needed this reminder the last couple of days. Thank you.

I am continually having to remind myself that I am running a marathon, not a 100 meter sprint.

Telling a trauma survivor who has been functionally on their own since they were a kid that they "have" to "reach out" for "relational healing" disrespects & misunderstands their wound.

The only "have to" in trauma recovery is, we have to find a recovery path that works for us.

You didn't know what you didn't know at the time, & you couldn't do what you couldn't do. True honesty w/ yourself is going to have to include grace for your past self-- as well as accountability for yourself now, to do better as you develop new tools & supports.

Easy does it.

Humility is more important in a therapist than intelligence.

Give me a therapist who is acutely aware of their many limitations & actively working to learn & grow & make amends over a "brilliant" therapist any day.

Mourn. Don't be ashamed. Don't let anyone shame you for the desire or need to mourn.

Whether "they" think your attachment to what or who you lost is legitimate or valid or understandable doesn't matter. Literally couldn't matter less.

You get to mourn.

The world keeps saying to me, “no, not that,”it seems. When am I going to get a yes?

Trauma informed practice emphasizes psychoeducation, because survivors learning about what is happening in their brain & body supports them in making informed choices, choosing appropriate recovery tools, & levels the power imbalance in the therapy relationship at least a little.

Therapy is political because everything is political when a few select people in power are making decisions for all that impact, at the very basic level, their health, bodies, and wellbeing.

#TherapyIsPolitical

#TherapistSky

#TheMoment a Manitoba family deployed googly-eyed hockey sticks to poke fun at Trump Shannon Proudfoot, Aaron Maciejko, and KJ de Groot recount the moment googly-eyed hockey sticks were stuck in a snowbank to poke fun at Donald Trump and his demand for 24/7 eyes on the border.

I was delighted that The National did a quick segment on the googly-eyed hockey stick border guards. Feels like the perfect Canadian smartass response to the moment. #cdnpoli www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

Oops, you are right!

Look a little closer…

Acknowledging our progress & giving ourselves credit isn't about "ego"-- for many trauma survivors, it's a goddamn revolutionary act.

Self-esteem isn't about achievement. It's about behaving consistently w/ our goals & values, & having our own back. We deserve credit for that.

So many trauma survivors grow up feeling or believing we're "stupid" or "incompetent" or "lazy"-- when the reality is, it was our intelligence, competence, & industriousness that actually made it possible for us to keep all those plates spinning.

Right up until we couldn't.

Submitted my application for grad school today. Feeling a little proud and a little anxious.

When a society breaks stuff faster than it heals stuff you get the world we've got.

When a society heals more than it breaks, well...that is a world we could have, with discernment, mindfulness (and a wholly different economic system).

Today may or may not be awesome in terms of how we feel or function. But even if today is complete ass, we gotta keep talking to ourselves w/ fairness & love. We can't let how we relate to ourselves be dictated by whether today sucks.

Trauma recovery doesn't take days off.

For many survivors, a "flashbulb" trauma in the recent past is the thing that finally gets us considering how our history impacts how we think about & relate to ourselves-- & we realize we've been a trauma survivor much longer than we thought.

No shame. That's really common.

Many trauma survivors have kind of this tortured relationship w/ hope. We desperately want it, need it-- but it feels scary. We've been burned (sometimes literally).

Easy does it. Post traumatic hope often has to start w/ micro dosing possibility thinking.

Calling a trigger "stupid" in our head makes us feel stupid for being triggered by it. It doesn't help us manage it. It makes it worse-- because now we have to deal w/ the trigger, plus embarrassment or shame.

We gotta watch our self-talk around triggers. It matters.

Trauma recovery that requires us to be someone other than who we authentically are is not actual recovery.

Real recovery is us repairing our relationship w/ ourselves-- not bypassing our wounds by inventing a "recovery persona." That's what happens in cults, not recovery.

It can be wildly triggering to trauma survivors to have someone coming at us w/ confident assumptions about what we "really" think, what our motivations are, etc. Our personhood was functionally erased in many of our early relationships. We don't need that sh*t from people now.

I hate my life… What is the point in trying to fix yourself when you seem to get abandoned by those who say they are trying to help you… my life sucks.

That capacity to feel so deeply, which causes us so much pain because we're so, so sensitive to every bump in the road...it's also a secret superpower.

I'm tellin' ya: if the world's gonna heal, it's gonna be Highly Sensitive People who lead the way.

Because trauma has made intimacy & relationships complicated for us doesn't mean we're not in a relationship because there's something "wrong" w/ us or "broken" about us. It means what it means-- we've seen & experienced sh*t that makes attachment complicated. No more; no less.

The more I look at myself the more I see that I need to work on. Sigh, self-awareness can be so hard.

Damn, black and white thinking by TB is quite the challenge!

Certain relationships can be supportive to us as we heal our trauma-- but not relationships in which we're left guessing at the others' intentions or agenda, or where we feel purposefully kept in the dark.

That sh*t just replicates the toxic power dynamics of abuse & neglect.