INNER STRENGTH
TRAUMA THERAPY AND COUNSELLING
NOVEMBER 2022 NEWSLETTER
What's included this month?
With the recent interest in the podcast interview with Gabor Mate I sent out in a group email, I thought it might be nice to have a monthly newsletter that connects you to some information and resources. This month I am featuring a book, a practice, and a podcast. I hope you find something here that inspires, supports, connects you.
I am open to suggestions, so if you have heard, seen or read something that you have found interesting or useful that you would like to share, please feel free to email it to me at chantal.innerstrength@gmail.com. I will consider including it in a "recommended" section. I will not use your name to keep confidentiality.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION
Kristin Neff is a bit of a self-compassion guru. I tend to be a bit wary of gurus, especially popular psychology ones. However, I recently got her book, Fierce self-compassion: How women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power and thrive and have found it a good and useful read. And not just for women!!
What she says about the challenges that women face is equally true for many of us who have experienced trauma, particularly early trauma. We have often learned to give too much of ourselves away, find it hard to speak, or even hear, our truth, and feel like we don't have the worth or rights that others have.
I think her reminder to be kind to ourselves, to hold our feelings with as much generosity and understanding as we can, can rarely be said enough! We need to learn to be the interested, caring, understanding parent and mentor that we need and often missed or still miss out on.
And we need permission to say, "no", to set boundaries, to value our needs and wants, to stake our claim to be ourselves in this world.
Here is a link to her website and a video by Kristin about her book: https://self-compassion.org/fierce-self-compassion/
PRACTICE RECOMMENDATION
So this is also a little something new. I have been wanting to get some YouTube videos going that offer a guided experience of some of the practices I have in written form on my website and that I sometimes do with clients in session. So here is a little ditty that is created from understandings from Somatic Experiencing and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It is called, Tracking Towards Coherence: What Else is Here...
Follow this link to have a go at the YouTube practice: https://youtu.be/rwcgz29hvcE
If you would like to read the information sheet, please follow this link: https://www.innerstrengththerapyandcounselling.com/uploads/5/4/6/0/54601033/what_else_is_here_infosheet.pdf
PODCAST RECOMMENDATION
The last podcast I recommended was from Dr Rick and Forest Hanson's Being Well series. This one is, too: Dr Besser van der Kolk this time. You may know him from his famous book, The body keeps the score.
I hope this one also gives some useful perspectives and hope on dealing with the effects of trauma, particularly developmental (childhood) trauma. I like approaches that have an openness and creativity to them. We need time to talk, to tell the story, to be heard and to be known. And we need time to explore in other ways. The best way is always the way that works best for us.
To listen follow this link: https://www.rickhanson.net/being-well-podcast-evolving-our-approach-to-treating-trauma-with-dr-bessel-van-der-kolk/
