Trauma – tiffany nicole fletcher

Browse Category by Trauma

Contemplative Practice, Emotional Support, Event Recording, Facing Challenge, Mindfulness, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Sleep Support, Spiritual Practice, Trauma, Video, Wellness

VIDEO: Learn How to Calm the Anxious Mind (Event Recording)

There is so much going on in the world, both on a global level and in the nitty-gritty of our daily lives. It can be a challenge to find ways to manage the stress of it all and remember the light and resilience we carry within.

I’ve long known that mindfulness practice is a powerful way to promote calm and reduce the effects of stress, but I recently learned the fascinating and life-changing details of just how it can achieve this.

I had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Dr. Kirk B i ngaman, Fordham University professor of mental health counseling and spiritual integration, at Trinity Church Wall Street about anxiety (both personal and collective) and how mindfulness practice can help us manage it by rewiring the brain over time – toward resilience, non-reactivity, steadiness, and positivity. We discussed mindfulness practice, neuroplasticity, and how we can access calm and peace in daily life. Dr. Bingaman gave a presentation on these topics before our chat.

Click the image below to view the event recording.

*Tiffany Nicole Fletcher and Dr. Kirk Bingaman in conversation at Trinity Church Wall Street*

Did you know that the innate orientation of our brains is anxiety and hypervigilance?

This ancient design served an evolutionary purpose, as a way to help our ancestors anticipate threats and survive in the face of mortal danger a long time ago. It has helped humans survive through the ages.

Most of us no longer face the threat of being killed by a tiger, yet we all still carry a brain that is constantly anticipating danger and pain. In his book, The Power of Neuroplasticity for Pastoral and Spiritual Care (which I highly recommend!), Dr. Bingaman shares about the ways that mindfulness practice can help us steer the brain toward the positive:

Chronic Illness, Communities of Care, Disability, Facing Challenge, Healing, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Trauma, Wellness

Three Lies We Tell About Health & Healing

While in community recently, I had the eye-opening opportunity to witness many misconceptions about healing and the healing process. Sadly, many so-called healers even hold these beliefs, and perpetuate them to their clients and the broader community. I decided to share these misconceptions here and also share what I’ve learned to be true.

Misconception #1: “If you live with a disease, you are unhealthy. If you are physically “well,” you are healthy.

Health is more than the absence of disease. You might have heard this statement before, or seen it floating around the internet. It’s worth reflecting on. Health is more than just being free of disease in the physical body, and it’s not a one-time event that happens and lasts forever. Health is the sum of all the factors of our lives that intersect and form our well-being. How are your relationships? Do you feel held in community? Are you fulfilled and satisfied with how you spend your days? Are your material needs being met? How are you treated in the broader society in which you live? Do you reside in a safe and supportive environment? Do you live in a state of chronic stress? What is your relationship to your past; are you living in unforgiveness or bitterness?

Emotional Support, Grief, Herbalism, Medicinal Plants, Personal Growth, Self-care, snowdrop, Trauma, Wellness

The Power of Plants: Snowdrop and Grief Wisdom

Lately I’ve been thinking about emergence and transition, about what it’s like to move out of periods of darkness or change and come into new ways of being, living, and even loving. I’ve been thinking about the grief involved in that, about how necessary grief is as a process, how it eventually leaves a clearing…and about how often we experience a grief process but don’t recognize it as that.

The process is different when we’re able to call it what it is. Grief likes to be welcomed into the room, given a proper seat.

Chronic Illness, Embodiment, Facing Challenge, Grief, Healing, Personal Growth, Reiki, Resilience, Self-care, Somatic Healing, Trauma

Embodiment and the Pain of Chronic Illness and Trauma

The body is our home for life. We live in it every moment yet most of us live in a disembodied state, rarely thinking about our body unless something is going wrong, unless we’re experiencing some kind of pain or physical dysfunction. And, maybe also when we’re dressing it, or thinking about how we’d like to change it.

But when you live with chronic illness or pain, it’s as if the body turns up the volume and regardless of whether you want to or not, you’re forced to live in a heightened awareness of the body you live in. You’re forced to live in direct relationship with it, and this relationship can be just as complicated as any other—you might experience anger, frustration, power struggles, days or moments when things are less difficult, and days when you feel more accepting towards its intricacies and idiosyncrasies. You might struggle with feeling like the communication is “off” between you and your body, like you can’t understand it and like it can’t hear you when you tell it you need a break from the pain or want to understand what’s going on with it.