Posts tagged with “trauma”

How to Reap the Benefits of Post-Traumatic Growth

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.” ~Hemingway

We all know of post-traumatic stress (PTS) but how many of us know of post-traumatic growth (PTG), a very hopeful and attainable way of life beyond the loss, adversity, and trauma we’ve experienced? It’s a term that was coined in the 1990s and is becoming more popular now as positive psychology and the specific area of resiliency-building have gained momentum in our society.

What is post-traumatic growth? It’s positive change and growth that comes about as a result of an adversity or loss. It is channeling …

It Wasn’t The Trauma That Made You Strong

By Lori Deschene

Collective Trauma Online Summit—A Transformative Free Event

By Lori Deschene

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by everything that’s going on in the world and powerless to help? Even if you avoid the news—which to be honest, I generally do—you’ll still be bombarded with the latest conflicts and tragedies when you log on to social media. We may look to our smartphones for a little break from the chaos, but really, there’s no escape from it.

It’s not that we don’t care—that’s not why we often try to zone out and tune it all out. It’s just all so heavy and scary and disheartening, not to mention never-ending. Still, we can’t …

When Trauma Has Shaped You

By Lori Deschene

How I’m Healing the Vulnerable, Rejected Kid Inside Me

By Hayley Brooks

“In case no one told you today:  You’re beautiful. You’re loved. You’re needed. You’re alive for a reason.  You’re stronger than you think. You’re going to get through this.  I’m glad you’re alive. Don’t give up.” ~Unknown

I was fourteen years old and it was a holiday of firsts: my first holiday away from my family with my school and my first holiday abroad, where I had my first real crush.

For the two weeks I was away, I was caught up in a flirtation with a boy from one of the other schools. I had to pinch myself when …

How Embracing and Loving My “Negative” Emotions Helped Heal My Pain

By Kelly Martin

“Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all your emotions.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

For a long time, heaviness and dark feelings were very familiar to me. In a strange way they were comforting; I felt safe in darkness. The light felt more painful to me, but I also wanted to change because I wanted to free myself from the limitations of staying in the dark.…

Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma: We Can Break the Cycle of Abuse

By Jason Large

“Our ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles. One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal. One cannot live without the other, each is the other’s hope, meaning and strength.” ~Gemma B. Benton

I thought I had no value, my opinion meaningless. My sense of self was decimated. Finally, I got angry and attacked.

“You can’t imagine the pain you’ve put me through!” I yelled. “You don’t even know who I am. You can’t see it. You’re refusing to take responsibility for the way you raised me! Not thinking is not an excuse! …

The Most Powerful Tool for Healing: Tell the Right Stories

By Nadia Colburn

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful parts of ourselves.” ~David Richo

In my mid-thirties, I had what I experienced as a breakdown.

If you had asked me ten or even twenty years earlier whether I had been sexually abused, I would have said no. But in my mid-thirties, strange and scary memories started surfacing in my body—along with pieces of story and language.

These pieces of memory and my responses to them seemed to glue together …

Why I Now Appreciate Years of Pain and How Gratitude Healed My Life

By Deborah Perdue

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“Hope is faith’s impoverished sister, but it’s a start.” ~Maureen Barberio, Gettin’ Out of Bullytown

My life wasn’t always easy. It’s not always easy now, as a matter of fact. But there was a very long period where it was quite difficult and painful. It is sad how many of us can say that, isn’t it?

I grew up in a dysfunctional home with two sisters. My father was an alcoholic and was physically and verbally abusive. My mother, herself a victim of …

Your Trauma Is Valid

By Lori Deschene

Why I Drank, How It Destroyed Me, and How I’m Healing My Self-Hatred

By Adriana Kupresak

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual assault and self-harm and may be triggering to some people.

Hi, I’m Adriana and I’m an alcoholic.

When I look back at my life, I realize it was inevitable that I’d end up here.

By the time I was nineteen, I’d already had a history of self-harm through cutting, a bi-product of my depression and anxiety. I was anorexic. I’d had a near cervical-cancer scare not once, but twice within a six-month period, leaving my gynecologist back in Sydney speechless. “I have never had a case like yours.”…

Post-Traumatic Growth: How Pain Can Lead to Gain

By Paula Stephens

“When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. When life is bitter, say thank you and grow.” ~Shauna Niequist

It’s been over five years since the unexpected death of my oldest son. The first couple years were fraught with depression, despair, and a sense of hopelessness like I had never felt before. I even kept a notebook in my purse outlining the plan for how I would ultimately end my life.

It wasn’t until this past year that I told my friends about how close I had been to the edge. After outing myself, I found out they …

How to Reconnect with the Inner Light Below Your Pain

By Courtney Bridgman

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“What hurts you blesses you, darkness is your candle.” ~Rumi

We are all born with it. The beautiful bright light in our soul, filled with love and happiness.

I remember having that feeling of being so alive and free and untouched by fear or worry.

This is who we are at the core of our being. This is our true authentic self, from before the world told us who we needed to be and negative outside circumstances started to tear down …

How to Make Peace with the Past and Stop Being a Victim

By Lindsey Sharratt

“Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” ~Harvey Fienstein

Do you usually feel as if everything bad that can happen will happen, and it will happen to you?

You must be the unluckiest person on the face of the planet. Opportunities never work out. Doors that should open close in your face. Friends let you down. Bosses don’t see your value. There seems to be a universal conspiracy to keep you stuck right where you are now.

You feel like your life is always going to be like this.…

3 Things to Remember When Facing Emotional Pain

By Diane Webb

“We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us—how we can take it, what we do with it—and that is what really counts in the end.” ~Joseph Fort Newton

Life is messy. Sometimes it’s so beautiful that I feel blinded by the glory I have the privilege of bearing witness to. Other times, I have felt such deep despair that I thought my tears would never end.

Unfortunately, my husband and I endured the deepest despair we could possibly imagine immediately following what should have been our …

We Can Get Through It, Even If We Think We Can’t

By Michelle McFadyen

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~Carl Gustav

It used to be my favorite guided meditation. You know the one about the mountain, where you imagine yourself as the mountain? Strong, tall, standing firm in the face of all that comes at it—rain, hail, shine. Letting it all wash off without getting rattled by it.

One of the reasons I used to love that particular guided meditation was because I could relate to it. I could relate to it because I love mountains. I love trekking and I love mountains. Big mountains. …

Take Your Power Back: How to Release Fear and Trauma

By Tom Leveen

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of physical and emotional abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“I say I am stronger than fear.” ~Malala Yousafzai

“Don’t be scared.” It’s so easy to say, yet sometimes, for many of us, so hard to accomplish.

When I was about three or four years old, my dad locked me in the chicken coop in our back yard. This was a punishment. I was naked and screaming, literally jumping up and down with terror.

Another punishment consisted of my mother rubbing human waste in my face.

There are other things …

Limited Edition Tiny Buddha “Just Breathe” Shirt (Supporting the David Lynch Foundation)

By Lori Deschene

*Update: This campaign has ended. Subscribe to Tiny Buddha for daily or weekly emails, and to learn about future shirt campaigns!”

Hi friends! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lori, the founder of Tiny Buddha.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been offering a limited edition “Just Breathe” shirt, and I’ve been excited to see the response from the community! The campaign ends this Sunday, so if you’d like to grab a shirt, this is your last opportunity to do so.

A portion of the proceeds will go to the David Lynch Foundation, a nonprofit that …

How Meditation Can Help Us Heal from Trauma, Pain, and Loss

By Sharee James

“In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation. The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I still remember the first day I met her.

I was running a bodywork clinic from home at the time, and she came to me one day for a treatment. Let’s call her Miranda.

Miranda had something about her that I noticed immediately, a palpable sense of peace and clarity that shone through her eyes and radiated out from her very core.

She seemed to be the most spiritually grounded person I had ever come across. I conveyed …

Healing from Abuse and Feeling Happy and Whole Again

By Leslie Jordan Clary

TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of sexual abuse and may be triggering to some people.

“Scars tell us where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.” ~David Rossi, Criminal Minds

When I was in my mid-fifties, I ordered cable television for the first time in my life.

My husband and I had raised our two sons mostly without TV, but now they were grown and on their own. My husband and I were divorced, and I had moved to a secluded place on the high desert to pursue a writing career.

My Internet service …