Beyond Intergenerational Trauma: Intergenerational Courage

We talk a lot about intergenerational trauma—the wounds that pass from your grandmother to your mother to you, showing up like ghosts in patterns you can't quite name. And yes, that's real. And, something many of us are working through.

But we talk far less about intergenerational courage and intergenerational resilience. Everyone who came before you gave you different skills, different abilities, different strengths that you can build on, refine, and grow from. They're still with you—supporting you, holding you. The courage your great-grandmother summoned to survive? It lives in your bones. The resilience your grandfather built through hardship? It's part of your inheritance too.

What if we started claiming that lineage as loudly as we name the wounds?

Healing That Moves in All Directions

Here's something we don't talk about enough: the healing you do in your lifetime heals backwards and forwards.

Yes, your healing is important for you—it helps you grow, transform, become a new version of yourself. But think about what that healing does collectively. How it changes the relationships in your life. How it shifts the ingredients in your family, your partnerships, your friendships, the groups you're part of.

When one ingredient in a recipe changes, the whole dish changes flavor. It's the same with families and groups. When one person does their healing and starts navigating everyone else differently, it influences and impacts everyone. It doesn't mean everyone chooses to heal. It doesn't mean everyone shifts in ways that feel comfortable. But it catalyzes change. It allows for new possibilities.

We're often terrified of change and convince ourselves we will lose love and connection, so we hide the parts of ourselves that are healing. We do it in secret, individualistically. But here's the thing: we aren't separate. We heal ourselves to heal each other. We heal each other to heal ourselves. Influence goes backwards and forwards and all around.

The Blend: Self-Care and Collective Care

There's the Western, individualist approach: take care of yourself first, then others. Put on your own oxygen mask. And there's the more collectivist approach: if there's a drop in the tank, give it away. The community comes first.

The healing blend is bridging these two—taking care of yourself and taking care of the whole. Moving back and forth between caring for yourself and caring for another. This requires discernment. It sometimes requires boundaries. And it sometimes requires love and connection.

What's your default? Is it connection at all costs—losing yourself to tend to others? Or is it structure and boundaries at all costs—protecting yourself at the expense of intimacy? The work is developing the muscles that aren’t at strong. The ones you don't use as a default or on autopilot. Stretching into new possibilities with sustainable baby steps. Micro-adjustments to habits and patterns that allow you to live in new ways—and invite your children, your parents, and the generations around you to do the same.

Why Community Organizing Across Generations Matters, too

Since healing moves backwards and forwards through generations, then so does change. And that's why community organizing across generations isn't just strategic—it's essential.

Every generation is working out different things—different generational gaps, different challenges. When we organize across generations, we access different kinds of wisdom. Elders carry institutional memory, long-view perspective, and often a patience that comes from having seen cycles repeat. Younger generations bring innovation, urgency, fresh eyes, and an unwillingness to accept "that's just how it is." What if organizing focused on how to bridge generations together as the foundational focus towards building new pathways forward?

When we organize across generations, we're not just sharing perspectives. We're healing the fractures between us. We're building the kind of intergenerational trust that trauma has broken. We're practicing what it looks like to be in community where all ages are valued, where wisdom flows in multiple directions, where the young aren't dismissed and the old aren't discarded.

This is how we create the world we want—not by leaving it for the next generation to fix it, and not by expecting elders to have already figured it out. We do it together, in relationships across the generational lines in defiance and rebellion of the growing separation in our society. 

Three micro-practices for Intergenerational Healing

If we look at intergenerational healing from three perspectives—the physical, the emotional, and the energetic—there are some basic practices to try. The approach here is that we push away nothing and acknowledge everything. This way we are not creating bigger blindspots by sneakily avoiding things, especially the discomfort of stepping outside of our comfort zone.

Physical: Develop a daily habit or micro adjust a habit that is not working for you. Eat well, sleep well, move your body. You've heard this before. But here's the key: find the stretch, not the leap. If you leap, you'll crash and return to your autopilot default. If you stretch—in a micro-change just at  the edge of discomfort, that is a stepping stone for more change. For example, maybe it’s take 5 minutes in the evening to clean the dishes and 5 minutes in the morning to put the dishes away. This small habit gives you a clean kitchen, allowing the space for you to make healthier food or take an exhale in the morning to enjoy your coffee.  With consistency, you build capacity and more new habits build on top of themselves. What's the physical habit you're going to pick up, or refine, to support your well-being this month?

Emotional: Feel your feelings. Woo wee, is this a tough one. We push out the "negative" feelings and pull in the "good" ones. We measure our lives by happiness. But happiness doesn't allow for wholeness—because we can't be happy all the time. What emotions have you exiled? Maybe you don't feel anger because it was scary when you were a kid. Maybe you don't cry because you weren't allowed to. How can you have a feeling practice every day, especially for the hard emotions? If you easily feel sadness, let it help you access anger. If you easily feel anger, let it help you access grief. Anger needs something to push against—give it reverberation. For example, listen to a sad song or scream in the car. What can you do to practice feeling your feelings for 5 minutes a day?

Energetic: Sweep your field. This is for those of you who are sponges—whose nervous systems are super sensitive, who pick up the feelings and fears of everyone around you. You have to tend to your energetic well-being. When someone in your house is angry or grumpy and you start wearing it, make a conscious choice to not take it on and instead let them have that important emotion to work through. This is great for kids too. For example, try shaking or wiggling your whole body after reading the news. Dogs do this, why can’t we. Or take your hands and sweep your whole body as if the other person’s stress or feelings puffed flour dust all over you and you need to sweep it off. What are you going to do to let go of the feeling or stress or fear you accidentally take on from others?

What's Contagious?

We know from science that trauma is contagious. Fear spreads. Nervous system activation ripples through families, organizations, communities.

But courage is contagious too. A regulated nervous system is contagious too. When you do your healing work, when you hold your own wholeness, when you stay gentle with yourself and present in the face of activation—you become the regulating force. People around you can make different choices because their nervous system activation isn't the only thing in the room.

This doesn't mean putting yourself in danger. It means allowing yourself to be what others can regulate to. It's especially important for those working with vulnerable populations, but it's true for all of us—in our families, our workplaces, our communities.

Let's share the nervous system agility we have and are creating, so we can heal backwards and forwards for generations.

Inviting All Parts Back again and again…Intention, Integrity, Wholeness

What if your integrity is wholeness? Not wholeness as a destination you arrive at, but wholeness as a practice—a continual calling back of all your parts. Guided by your intentions. 

From a physics perspective, when all parts of a structure are working together, it can hold more. It's sound. It has integrity. But when parts are pushed out, excluded, denied—the structure becomes unstable. Those pushed-out parts don't disappear. They become your blindspots. They show up sideways. They run you from the shadows.

We all have parts we've exiled. The angry part. The needy part. The part that failed. The part that's too much or not enough. The part that got the message early on: You're not welcome here. And so we split. We perform. We please. We show up as the acceptable version of ourselves while the rest waits in the wings.

Wholeness asks: What if all parts of me are held and seen? What if I can do the same for the people around me? This doesn't mean acting on every impulse or letting every part run the show. It means acknowledging them. Making room. Calling them back into the fold so they're not running you unconsciously.

When you stand in your own wholeness—when all parts of you are present and accounted for—you can hold more. You can be with others more fully. You're not trying to hide anything, which means you're not using energy to perform or protect. That energy becomes available for something else: connection, creativity, presence.

The Patterns Underneath

Here's the deeper layer: the way we live, the way we connect with others, with our partners, our children, our communities—these patterns reflect what's inside us. Patterns we've had since we were young. And we have so much agency over how we navigate these patterns—if they're conscious.

The challenge is they're not always conscious. Sometimes we're just running on autopilot, following through on patterns without any assessment of them. These autopilot patterns are often the places where we've pushed parts out. The patterns protect us from having to feel something, face something, be something we decided long ago wasn't allowed.

So the first step is to examine: What are my patterns? What do they look like? Which ones do I want to keep? Which ones don't serve me anymore? What parts of me have I been leaving out?

Then comes the intention—one that guides you toward a new pattern, a new way of being, a more whole version of yourself.

Why Intention Matters

When I pair intention with integrity, I'm talking about creating a clear focus that filters through your entire life. Your intention becomes the thing you use to assess: Is this moving me toward what I want to create or how I want to connect? Is this aligned with who I'm becoming?

Take a look at your schedule right now. How much time are you spending working? With your children? In community? Doing creative things? Playing? These questions matter because what you're doing shows you what you currently value most. And if your intention is to delight in life more, to play more—but all you're doing is working—there's a gap. Your intention can become the filter that helps you close it.

The Intention Hacks:

Amplifying Results

Let's say you go swimming. Great. It keeps you healthy, keeps you exercising, keeps you moving. But what if you added an intention to it? Maybe your intention is to move through your emotions, to allow anger to move through you, or to process a significant loss. Intention allows you to use the resistance of the water to move through the unconscious or conscious resistance to feeling your feelings. Suddenly that workout has a twofer effect—you've amplified its impact by adding intentionality.

This is also a way to call parts back. That anger you've been pushing down or out? It needs to move. That grief you've been compartmentalizing? It needs somewhere to go. Adding intention to movement or an embodied activity gives those exiled parts a seat at the table. You're not just exercising—you're integrating.

Let Go of the Outcome

Here's where it gets sneaky. We set an intention, but underneath we're actually holding an expectation: If I do this, THEN I'll be happy. That's the quickest route to suffering—looking for the outcome instead of participating in the journey.

Even patience can be a trap. If you're patient for something, you're waiting for an outcome instead of allowing for what could arrive that's even better. Your intention is the focus you keep returning to—not a destination you're trying to reach.

Wholeness isn't something you achieve and then you're done. It's a practice. You call parts back. They drift. You call them back again. The intention isn't to arrive at wholeness—it's to keep returning to it.

You Can't Do It Alone

This is the piece we often forget: intentions require support. We need people to assist us, especially if our intention involves shifting behavior or changing deeply rooted patterns. Just like our individual New Year's intentions aren't sustainable without accountability, without community, without someone to witness our progress—the same is true for families and organizations.

Calling parts back is vulnerable work. It's hard to do alone. We need witnesses. We need people who can see our exiled parts and not flinch. We need spaces where we can practice being whole before we take it out into the world.

A big shift for two weeks is brilliant. But how do you hold that thread consistently, sustainably? It might mean starting smaller. It might mean celebrating the little wins. It might mean celebrating when you mess up and celebrating your renewed commitment. It might mean feeling like a failure, and recognizing it's not the end yet—so you couldn't have failed.

Showing Up More Fully You (During the Holidays)

Building off last month's newsletter on courage and nervous system patterns: How can you go into your holiday gatherings with a new intention this year? To show up more fully you—with more of your parts present.

Maybe it's in subtle ways—excusing yourself to the bathroom to reconnect with yourself before returning to a crowd of family. Maybe it's dressing how you'd normally dress with your friends, even if it's not what your parents or relatives expect. Maybe it's using your voice in new ways. Maybe it's letting the part of you that usually stays quiet have a little more room.

The intention is simply: How do I stay present with all of myself while being present with others? How do I not abandon parts of me in order to belong?

Walking your Talk

Say you're working for an organization with great intentions—maybe transforming generations through economic opportunity. But it's not caring for its own people very well. There's a huge blindspot: the organization isn't “walking its talk”. Parts of the mission have been pushed out.

Wholeness in organizational intention means there's room for mistakes, for challenges, for struggles—because those are part of all of us. Part of all organizations. Sometimes that's the space where we do our best work, where we connect most deeply. When we try to present only the polished parts, we lose integrity. We become structurally unsound.

By "best work," I don't mean best by polarity. I mean work done with the most integrity, the most alignment, the most foundational congruence—where all parts are invited back, held and acknowledged. It becomes easeful. There's less burnout. Less harm in order to create good. Less of a need to positively impact others at any cost, while negatively impacting those providing the impact, which is never sustainable.

If You Aren't Sure What Your Intention Should Be…My Suggestion: Presence.

Presence is the container that holds wholeness. You can't call parts back if you're not present enough to notice they're missing. You can't integrate what you can't see. Presence is how we find the exiled parts and welcome them home.

Presence includes all time: the future, the past, the now. It keeps you firmly on your journey. It keeps you out of outcomes and expectations. It allows you to sit in the moment-to-moment changes happening in front of you and return to them, over and over and over again.

With the intention of presence, we can notice the subtle signs—even when someone's telling us they're OK, but if we look harder and we watch them more, we can tell they aren't. We're not just hearing words; we're present to the whole person in front of us, including the parts they might be hiding.

With the intention of presence, we can play with our kids and listen to the language they aren't using yet—not because they're hiding it, but because they don't know it yet. We can be present to parts of them that are still forming, still emerging.

With the intention of presence, we can really listen to the people we work with and serve. We can listen to what everyone needs, what's possible for the organization to hold, what the organization itself needs. We can be present with all these things—and be present with all the feelings that come up in the moment of presence.

Presence is how we practice wholeness in real time. Every moment is an opportunity to notice: What part of me is here right now? What part is missing? Can I call it back?

Those of you who know me know I've done a lot of work around birth and death—and I keep returning to this question: How do we live each day as if tomorrow isn't promised, without any regrets? The answer that keeps being given to me by friends, mentors, and community members is presence. Be here. Be whole. Be all of yourself, right now.

What if we're all just a little bit more present with each other in 2026? What if we all call a few more parts back home?

December Offering: Start the Year Intentionally

Because we all need a little extra support for new beginnings, I'm offering a special package for new clients: two sessions focused on setting an intention for the shift of the year, looking at patterns you want to shift, and building structures so you can start 2026 intentionally—and more whole.

If you're curious about larger packages, please reach out. And if you just want to get to know me and my work, a two-session package is a really good option. I'd still love to have a 20-minute consultation call with you so you know what you're signing up for. (You have to purchase in December to receive this offer.)

The Non-Negotiables

You cannot do this alone. Your brain won't let you.

Progress isn't linear. You'll regress. That's not failure—it's data.

Small disruptions create big changes. Don't try to transform everything at once.

Wholeness is a practice, not a destination. Keep calling parts back.

When you change your dance, you give everyone permission to change theirs.

Remember: You're not broken. Your patterns aren't character flaws. They're just neural highways that served you once. Now you're building new roads. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes presence. And all of your parts are welcome on the journey.

Beyond Survival, Holiday Guide

Before the Gathering (Preparation):

1. Map Your Default Role - Write down the role you typically play in family dynamics (maybe...hero, scapegoat, peacekeeper, invisible one, rebel or simply the qualities of your role). Just naming it reduces its power over you.

2. Create Your Circuit Breaker - Choose one pattern you want to interrupt. Just one. Maybe it's saying setting boundaries and saying "no." Practice your alternative response out loud, alone, 10 times before you go. Your nervous system needs the rehearsal.

3. Build Your Courage Buddy - Identify one friend or family member who might be ready for change too. Text them: Will you be my courage buddy for the holiday. Can I text you everytime I disrupt “x” pattern and will you celebrate with me.  Then, ask if they want to do the same for themselves. Courage is stronger with a witness - and it helps your brain  change faster.

During the Gathering (Remember the 72-Hour Threshold):

1. The Bathroom Reset - When you feel yourself slipping into old patterns (and you will), excuse yourself. In the bathroom, do 5 slow breaths with longer exhales. This reset literally tells your nervous system: "We're safe enough to try something new."

2. The Pattern Interrupt - When the familiar dynamic starts (Mom criticizes, Dad withdraws, sibling deflects), try ONE different response. Maybe it's silence instead of defending. Maybe it's "That's interesting" instead of arguing. Small disruptions create big ripples.

3. Conflict as Connection - When conflict arises (not if, when), try saying: "This feels important. Can we slow down and really hear each other?" You're not avoiding conflict—you're dancing with it.

After the Gathering (Integration):

1. The Debrief That Matters - Within 24 hours, write down: Where did I activate? Where did I stay present? No judgment, just data. Your nervous system is learning.

2. Celebrate the Tiny Wins - Did you pause for 3 seconds before responding once? That's a new neural pathway being born. Your brain needs you to acknowledge it.

The Non-Negotiables:

• You cannot do this alone. Your brain won't let you.

• Progress isn't linear. You'll regress. That's not failure—it's data.

• Small disruptions create big changes. Don't try to transform everything all at once.

• When you change your dance, you give everyone permission to change theirs.

Remember: You're not broken. Your patterns aren't character flaws. They're just neural highways that served you once. Now you're building new roads. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes courage.

And courage, thankfully, is contagious.

Start with one step. Just one. Your nervous system—and everyone connected to it—will thank you.

Courage is Contagious, too

When Courage Becomes as Contagious as Fear: Dancing with Nervous Systems…

Your patterns, Your family patterns, Your organization's patterns—the ones driving you crazy, the ones depleting you, the ones creating burnout, the ones you swear you'll change but somehow never do—they're not accidents. They're defaults - the patterns you organically reinforce without intentional disruption.  These familiar patterns are like highways in your brain, and in the brains around you. And here's the kicker: your brain regresses to these highways or old patterns under conditions that should feel opposite but aren't— stress AND familiarity. This is ideal if you like the patterns and want to keep them, but can feel like torture if you have worked hard to change them and have been seeing results. 

The Physics of It All

From a physics perspective, integrity means all parts working together in unified coherence. When we push out parts—voices, truths, uncomfortable realities—we're not necessarily morally compromised (though maybe that too). We're structurally unsound.

Those pushed-out parts? They become your blindspots. And, blindspots are naughty because they sneak up on you. They're the things you defend before you even know what you're defending. Or the things you react to before you even realize you are reacting. Like when someone suggests changing a holiday tradition or meeting time and everyone gets instantly defensive but can't explain why. (Spoiler: rebellion of “x” is still a reaction, because on its own it is not, yet, creation of something new.)

For the Change Agents I work with…

If you are drawn to work with me you are committed to changing patterns in yourself as well as the lives and world around you for the better...everyone I work with is a change agent. 

Now let's be real about care and social change work. It is undervalued and systematically exploited in a capitalistic society in order to maintain focus on material things and to maintain fear.  Non-profits, for example, by their legal design are literally organized for burnout. Underpaid because "mission." Overworked because "passion." Scrutinized on spending while being asked to save the world on fumes. This is often true for any adjacent social change or caregiving profession. 

So how do we start building new paths for social change, and working together. We need to plant seeds inside what already exists to build something new. We can’t for example, just shift from capitalism to mutual aid, we have to build bridges even beyond what benefits mutual aid offers from our current structures to new structures. This on an individual level means, for example, a lot of change agents need to adjust their relationship to money and the value of their work in the current system to create a new one. This also means we need to practice building community and collaboration in new and sustainable ways to co-create new foundations for these new patterns and new structures!

The Uncomfortable Truth About Collaboration

Here's what nobody wants to hear: You cannot collaborate without participating in conflict.

From a physics perspective, collaboration requires all parts. If we're avoiding conflict, we're excluding parts. Pushing them out. Creating blindspots. Losing structural integrity.

The trouble is we are not taught to do this and don’t even know where to begin, even when we know there is a challenge to address.

Your Practice Ground

You need a space to experiment where:

• You can BE curious and grow “data” on patterns

• New patterns can be tried without perfection

• Conflict can happen and be practiced

• Your nervous system can activate without YOU abandoning ship

• Your not doing it alone. You are sharing and celebrating one another’s little steps

• Someone holds the container so you don't snap back to the default that isn't working

Because here's the thing about disrupting patterns: The familiar will ALWAYS pull you back. Always. It's not a moral failing. It's physics. It's neuroscience. It's being human. So we have to make the new patterns familiar through repetition in every part of our life. 

What Actually Creates Change

You know what doesn't work? Trying to think your way into new patterns while your nervous system is hijacked. Under activation, you WILL regress to patterns you learned before age three. Not because you're weak. Because you're human with a human brain.

What does work?

1. Recognize the activation is coming Both under stress AND in familiar settings. It's not if, it's when.

2. Build your dirt paths with repetition New neural pathways need practice. Again and again and again. Until they're strong enough to compete with the highways.

3. Get external support You cannot see your own blindspots (that's literally what makes them blindspots). You need someone outside your system's activation pattern to hold the container while you try new moves.

4. Make courage contagious When you change your pattern, you create permission for everyone to change theirs. 

The Dancing Lesson

Those "problematic" patterns? They're not enemies to defeat. They're dance partners showing you where your nervous system is stuck.

The question isn't: How do we eliminate our dysfunction?

The question is: How do we develop the agility to dance with whatever comes?

Because if we can learn to dance with activation—to be with it, face it, move with it—we can do anything. Even transform systems that insist on their own sickness with the patterns they depend on. Your nervous system agility becomes everyone’s possibility.

Togethe, we can make courage more contagious than fear.

The Non-Negotiables:

• You cannot do this alone. Your brain won't let you.

• Progress isn't linear. You'll regress. That's not failure—it's data.

• Small disruptions create big changes. Don't try to transform everything all at once.

• When you change your dance, you give everyone permission to change theirs.

Remember: You're not broken. Your patterns aren't character flaws. They're just highways that served you once. Now you're building new roads. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes courage.

Beyond Survival, Holiday Guide

Before the Gathering (Preparation):

1. Map Your Default Role - Write down the role you typically play in family dynamics (maybe...hero, scapegoat, peacekeeper, invisible one, rebel or simply the qualities of your role). Just naming it reduces its power over you.

2. Create Your Circuit Breaker - Choose one pattern you want to interrupt. Just one. Maybe it's saying setting boundaries and saying "no." Practice your alternative response out loud, alone, 10 times before you go. Your nervous system needs the rehearsal.

3. Build Your Courage Buddy - Identify one friend or family member who might be ready for change too. Text them: Will you be my courage buddy for the holiday. Can I text you everytime I disrupt “x” pattern and will you celebrate with me.  Then, ask if they want to do the same for themselves. Courage is stronger with a witness - and it helps your brain  change faster.

During the Gathering (Remember the 72-Hour Threshold):

1. The Bathroom Reset - When you feel yourself slipping into old patterns (and you will), excuse yourself. In the bathroom, do 5 slow breaths with longer exhales. This reset literally tells your nervous system: "We're safe enough to try something new."

2. The Pattern Interrupt - When the familiar dynamic starts (Mom criticizes, Dad withdraws, sibling deflects), try ONE different response. Maybe it's silence instead of defending. Maybe it's "That's interesting" instead of arguing. Small disruptions create big ripples.

3. Conflict as Connection - When conflict arises (not if, when), try saying: "This feels important. Can we slow down and really hear each other?" You're not avoiding conflict—you're dancing with it.

After the Gathering (Integration):

1. The Debrief That Matters - Within 24 hours, write down: Where did I activate? Where did I stay present? No judgment, just data. Your nervous system is learning.

2. Celebrate the Tiny Wins - Did you pause for 3 seconds before responding once? That's a new neural pathway being born. Your brain needs you to acknowledge it.

The Non-Negotiables:

• You cannot do this alone. Your brain won't let you.

• Progress isn't linear. You'll regress. That's not failure—it's data.

• Small disruptions create big changes. Don't try to transform everything all at once.

• When you change your dance, you give everyone permission to change theirs.

Remember: You're not broken. Your patterns aren't character flaws. They're just neural highways that served you once. Now you're building new roads. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes courage.

And courage, thankfully, is contagious.

Start with one step. Just one. Your nervous system—and everyone connected to it—will thank you.

Building trust and mystery practices

Mystery is something that is difficult or impossible to understand…but it is also part of what hope and faith are rooted in, especially in the face of uncertainty or things deeply outside of our control. How do you navigate mystery, after you have done all the tangible things you can do and thought through all the logical approaches? In what ways do you trust or mistrust yourself or others when things feel uncertain, out of your control or even hopeless? How are you leaning more into mystery?

---

Three foundations, I was taught…

In 2012, I interviewed tons of young people and young parents who had been through the foster care system. Through my interviews, they all predominately told me three things as advice, which they would tell expecting young parents:

1. Learn how to believe in yourself

2. Develop a belief in something bigger

3. Build a community of support around you

I have found that the wisdom these young parents shared with me translates to everyone and every family I have ever known. Since then, I've been cultivating this in my own life, too. I have also woven these principles into the fabrics of every program, every organization I've started, and also every family or individual I have worked with as a coach.

I was reminded of these three pieces of advice while having dinner with a dear friend, in her 80’s. For context, she has been part of my chosen family—like a mother to me since I was 18. She and her daughter Elise, who had developmental disabilities, raised me through some of the most formative years of my twenties. I worked with them for over 10 years, and they became part of my heart. I'd like to think I became part of theirs, too.

While we were at dinner, she told me many stories and regularly referenced three words: mystery, possibilities, and curiosity. The focus was on how to teach these themes, or, in my words, allow them to be experienced and transferable to others. 

While the three foundations I was taught are interconnected with each other, they also seem to weave between the words my friend shared. The belief in something bigger becomes mystery. The belief in yourself and building community through relationships becomes curiosity and possibilities. From my perspective, they all involve building trust in intimacy with self, others and something bigger, all while trusting in timing.

Do you trust yourself? How did you learn to? Do you trust a bigger force holds you? What do you believe in?  And, do you trust others and yourself with others in community?

Rebuilding Trust in Yourself

Noticing your nervous system response is key to rebuilding trust with yourself.  Oftentimes we are taught to override our body and our emotional responses to things. We are taught not to trust ourselves and our intuitive gut. We are taught to push through, force, or ignore. We are told what we are feeling is not allowed or not true. But if we stop ignoring the messages of our nervous system, it gives us a complete map on how to not only better care for ourselves, but also how to rebuild trust with ourselves.

Finding the presence and curiosity of a child can assist in building trust with yourself.  Children or the child inside us show us ways in which we can be so present and delight in the most incredible or mundane of things. Even if as kids we weren't allowed to be kids because of circumstances in our lives, as adults we can choose the opportunity to have that curiosity and that playfulness despite the circumstances. This opens possibilities.

First, we have to get really curious…Notice and recognize what your behaviors are, what your patterns are, and the quality at which you treat yourself along the way. 

Second, establish markers or tells…Find little tells that help you notice the frequency of patterns, behaviors and responses, so you can eventually disrupt them. Maybe it's defensiveness, maybe it's people pleasing, maybe it's abandoning yourself or your own needs, or not even knowing your own needs.

Third, acknowledge and show up for an apology…Actually tell yourself what you are committing to change and let yourself know you will mess up, but you will always come back and show up for repair. I am reminded of a story I heard where a mother hears her daughter say “I love you” (to herself), and then “I love you too” (back to herself.) 

Fourth, creating new pathways through disruption and repetition. When our nervous system hijacks us and puts us into old patterns - like a highway back to what’s familiar or how we learned to respond from our parents or other formative experiences. What we want to do is create little dirt paths of new possibilities by disrupting the old patterns. The more we disrupt and replace old patterns the little dirt paths or new possibilities can become more established through repetition. Then, we have the potential to create more possibilities and actually change our brains in the process.

Trust in Community and Relationships

How we build intimacy and trust in community largely depends on how willing we are to participate in conflict and resolution. Otherwise, we're likely fawning, pleasing, avoiding, or defending/blaming to stay away from conflict and the vulnerability required in repair.

What we want to do is be able to step into repair of conflict and have tools and pathways to do that. When we have mistrust in ourselves on how to handle it—based on past experiences, what people have told us, the delusions other people have told us, the stories they've had about us—it's harder to trust ourselves. We need these check-in moments, these points where we learn how to rebuild that trust in ourselves and while simultaneously building the trust in others. Practicing - bit by bit, over and over again.

Once we have more trust in ourselves, we have something more to stand on, but we have to keep practicing. Trust evolves and grows, it doesn’t just appear and with time it helps us build the deeper intimacy we want in our relationships and connections. It allows us to receive feedback, recognize our impact and change our behavior. It helps us better handle when people say things that are ouchie or that hurt us, because we can stand in our own self enough that we don't collapse and can instead listen.

If we collapse, we lose presence with the feelings that other people are having or sharing. All feelings are valid. What I'm feeling and what you're feeling—they're both true. But, that means how we talk about them can’t be in blame or defense. It's acknowledging that they're all true, and asking: How do you both move forward with this rebuilding trust, without betraying yourself or the other person? How do you show up in repair?

Mystery of Something Bigger

After talking with my friend, I was left with this question: How do we teach the mystery of trusting in something bigger?

I think where I see it held the most is in faith—in how we develop a sense of spiritual practice, how we believe in something bigger than ourselves. It doesn't have to be in the constructs of church, it doesn't have to be facilitated by someone. It could be a mystery practice, as a way to navigate what you can’t control. 

I felt the something that is bigger when my friend told me about meeting monks. She talked about how they exuded this peace, this energy, this way about them—a resonance of truth. I felt what she was talking about, but I didn't quite have the words. She told me that they had this beautiful container with two dice in it, and rolling the dice represented participating with the mystery of life.

What does faith look like to you? What does our own spiritual or mystery practice look like? How do you draw hope and faith from believing in something bigger, whether it's nature, or God(s), or quantum physics?

Trusting Something Bigger

It's vulnerable to connect to yourself. Its vulnerable to connect with others. It's vulnerable to connect with what you really desire in the world, and what you really feel about the world around you. It's vulnerable to put something out into the world that might get rejected or that you might not get. It’s vulnerable to have hope and trust.

In that rebuilding of trust with ourselves, we can lean into the mystery of life, the uncertainty of life, and build a trust in the unknown. And, vice versa, we can also find the support, and community we need to do it over and over again. 

Making Vicarious Trauma Less Contagious

When have you experienced vicarious trauma or when have you experienced your nervous system activating in response to the activation of another nervous system’s activation? What were the symptoms? How did you know it was happening? What support did you seek out?

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How to make vicarious trauma less contagious and break the rippling habits fear creates? 

Years ago my supervisor at a mental health organization reprimanded me for not spending time with the other therapists in the break areas. I remember bluntly telling her that I wanted to spend time connecting with the other therapists, but there was too much vicarious trauma. She quickly retorted, saying the organization does regular vicarious trauma trainings. 

The organization did have mandatory vicarious trauma trainings, but they were not enough.  All of the therapists worked with families with children under 18, who were struggling with overlapping interpersonal trauma, community trauma and immigration trauma. It was too much trauma for one therapist and their supervisor to hold without becoming vicariously traumatized. Vicarious trauma is tricky it spreads through every crack in systems, relationships and individuals. We all needed many more layers of support. 

I asked if we could build the layers of support that worked in other organizations I’d been part of to dissipate the effects of vicarious trauma, but they declined. This mental health organization had an old school hierarchical model and because I was new - they did not want any suggestions on shifting the way they managed vicarious trauma.  Unfortunately, if ignored - vicarious trauma spreads more easily and devastatingly, spinning the whole organization into survival mode.

What my supervisor didn’t know is that I had spent many years creating programs and trainings that supported anyone and everyone to navigate the vicarious trauma inherent with working with children and adults who had experienced abuse and violence, with crisis hotlines, with substance abuse as well as often connected with work with houseless youth and adults, and with foster youth. There was a rape crisis hotline I stayed with for 10 years as a volunteer, becasue we managed vicarious trauma so well. In my experience volunteers were getting better support and training than professional therapists because of the willingness to acknowledge the impacts of vicarious trauma. 

The unwillingness to acknowledge the ripple effects of vicarious trauma and build systems that truly mitigated against it  in mental health organizations caused me to break away to start an organization that could.  I was determined to build an organization that could be a model for organizations on how to dissipate the impacts of trauma and vicarious  trauma by the way it was designed like I had seen done successfully through some volunteer programs.

Building a model that disrupts the spreading of vicarious trauma…

Since vicarious Trauma is contagious, and spreads just like the flu. It means someone gets exposed to a traumatic story. The story lives in them. Makes their body feel that the world is more unsafe. Every time the story is retold the vicarious trauma spreads. One nervous system tells another nervous system to be on high alert. To activate. And, then that body brings that fear everywhere it goes - at home exposing partners, children and loved ones without even having to share the story. When the story has seeped into the cracks of us enough, we know because it has changed our mood, made us irritable, or anxious or numb, or depressed or ashamed or hopeless and our family soaks this up through us.  Just like when we are exposed to the flu - we need various layers of protection and ways of navigating infection on an individual and collective level in order to truly contain it. Unfortunately, few organizations or businesses prioritize this multi-layered type of buffer for their practitioners or participants, they simply make it an issue an individual needs to address themself. 

In the current landscape of rampant fear and uncertainty for providers working with individuals experiencing trauma - new type of organizational structure is more important than ever. We need to draw from more success stories on how to build an organization with a structure that inherently dismantles vicarious trauma. This isn’t a pipe dream. We did it with the organization Hatch Community, serving individuals and families with significant trauma and using structures to effectively weave “trauma informed” into the fabric of an organization. This model is nothing like you have experienced in other trainings with vicarious trauma. It creates structures of sustainability for the work by buffering the employees, instead of making it their issue to navigate alone. The structure tends to the business nervous system in order to subsequently care for every individual, their family/chosen family and anyone they could expose. The reason this works is our nervous systems can alert one another to safety as much as to danger, we just have to create environments that break the habits of fear and vicarious trauma from spreading to make this a possibility.

Where to start?

For you…

1. Identify symptoms of an activated nervous system…(The symptoms for trauma and vicarious trauma overlap) - Don’t pretend you are okay or can handle it. 

   1. Emotional: anxiety, depression, anger, and numbness 

   2. Physical symptoms: sleep disturbances, panic attacks, and chronic pain

   3. Behavioral changes: social withdrawal, irritability, hypervigilance, and substance abuse

   4. Cognitive symptoms: difficulty concentrating, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, and a distorted sense of meaning

2. Track your nervous system activity and prioritize its health and agility: Take breaks. Make Space in your schedule. Not everyone has the luxury of not living in survival mode. If you do, choose to. It will support everyone around you. 

3. Consistent Self-care, daily rituals not a one-off event. 

4. Reach out for support - I can help you learn how to do the work you care deeply about without taking on all the trauma. 

For your family and chosen family…

1. Get really honest with yourself and identify how others are being impacted by your vicarious trauma. 

2. Separate your work and your home life. Completely. This is the equivalent of don’t expose them to the flu. 

3. Pause between work and family interactions: Take a shower. Take a walk. Pause at the door of your house or home office room - every time you walk through it and leave everything on the other side of the door, protecting your partner, your kids, your loved ones or your roommates from exposure. 

4. Reach out for support - I can help you to learn how to not take trauma home to your family. It’s not worth the cost to any of you.  

For your work…

1. Have the hard conversations with supervisors or develop a team to build in new structures and systems that better support you and by design dissipate vicarious trauma. 

2. Identify small steps that can be taken immediately to acknowledge that vicarious trauma is an issue. Then, begin to identify steps for change. 

3. Reach out - I can help create an innovative and individualized approach for your business, organization or program to both identify where vicarious trauma is showing up and how to address it. 

The current political climate has demanded that we amplify the support for ALL organizations, especially those on the frontline. The heightened degree of vicarious trauma demands NEW levels of systemic, relational and individual support structured within organizations, even more so for organizations who are advocating for populations directly targeted by the current administration. We can’t do this alone. 

Conflict and Co-Regulation

How do you feel about conflict? How do you respond to it? Do you typically avoid active conflict? Or, are you comfortable with conflict, even heated debate? Do you use conflict as a way to agree and disagree in order to find compromise? How often do you participate with conflict towards repair and resolution with your colleagues, friends, partners, family or children?

Our childhood family was the first group we were part of and it creates the initial nervous system map at which we navigate groups and conflict throughout our life. It is where we first learn co-regulation. As humans, our nervous systems co-regulate in relationship. This means we decide whether we are safe or not both by how we individually feel and how the people around us feel. The challenge is that feelings are not often linear or logical. If someone’s nervous system around us is in fight, flight or freeze, it tells our nervous system there is danger present and we need to be alert. It does not matter if this is perceived or real danger. In the most extreme case, this is why vicarious trauma can be more contagious than the flu. But, our nervous system doesn’t need to be traumatized to be activated. We can feel unstable, unsafe and unsteady from the smallest of changes in our environment or relationships especially if they have negative associations with experiences from our past. 

Are you curious how co-regulation and conflict resolution are related? We learn to co-regulate in response to dis-ease and ease, to disconnection and connection, to challenge and opportunity - all reflecting a type of conflict and resolution. Conflict resolution requires a dance between the co-regulation of care for self and care for others. If we tend to avoid conflict, we can co-regulate by merging, pleasing, withdrawing or not participating (all abandoning the self or other) as opposed to more adaptively co-regulating by including care for yourself and others, finding shared compromise, repair and deeper connection.  

We live in a society that promotes self-growth and dyadic repair in partnership or relationship, but does not as often recognize the importance of community and group support for co-regulation. When it is a 1:1 relationship activating our nervous system, conflict resolution is necessary to find a way for both nervous systems to co-regulate in an adaptive way as opposed to a historically patterned (no longer useful) way. The possibility for resolution and change is dependent on the strategies of the nervous systems of the 2 individuals involved. In contrast, when we are in a group of 3 or more, there are more possibilities in a nervous system response because of the varying adaptabilities and resiliencies of each individual within the group. As a result, in groups our nervous systems can learn to co-regulate with more possibilities, allowing for greater adaptability for each individual. 

If we apply co-regulation to kids, the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” comes to mind. If our children are raised by parents, chosen family, fairy god parents, aunties, uncles and community - they develop more adaptive nervous systems. However, this requires conflict resolution because there are inevitably different styles of parenting/authroity, co-regulation and connection. If parents don’t have opportunities to share parenting, than kids often have their parents as their main co-regulators. This is a big ask on individual parent nervous systems. Therefore, beyond self care, support groups for co-parenting and learning conflict resolutions skills are the necessary practice for how to build communities of belonging and repair around kids and families. 

We often re-create the original dynamics of our original group, our childhood family. We do this over and over again in friends, work and even the families we create,  until we develop new more adaptive possibilities through new experiences. Group work expedites the possibility for change because it offers our nervous system a chance to experience and practice more possibilities at once. 

CHANGES in my work…

Moving forward I will be offering more group opportunities with more limited availability for one on one work. If you are curious about group work, have never done it, and feel like you need more information to feel open to it…please reach out for a chat.