That face! I confess I stare at this little face all day long. I rub this little belly all day long. Can’t write (or revise pages for the next book!) without Winnie nearby. Like all dog owners and lovers, I find myself wishing dogs could live forever. 🐶 ❤️

It was such a delight to talk with Fritzi Horstman, host of the Compassion In Action podcast, and the Compassion Prison Project. We talked about #ACEs, #trauma, and how we can find our way to healing, no matter what our story may be.
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The mission of CPP is to transform prisons and communities, by focusing on childhood trauma and how it affects the lives of men and women living and working in prisons. They work tirelessly to bring childhood trauma awareness, education, and healing to prisons and communities. https://apple.co/2YvGLqf
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If you’re dealing with unresolved childhood trauma or feeling chronically stressed and want to learn how to rewire your brain for health and build resilience back into your life, then click the link in my bio for my books and courses ❤️.

Thank you for being part of our community ❤️ Content by @donnajacksonnakazawaauthor

Studies have shown that the stress response can become stuck in the “on” position in children who face chronic unpredictable toxic stress.
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This chronic state of being in fight, flight, or freeze mode changes the setpoint for your well-being because you’re in a chronic state of stress arousal.
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This heightened stress response leads to increased production of inflammatory chemicals and stress hormones, which can lead to long-lasting shifts in the genes that oversee the stress response.
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This, in turn, can lead to increased inflammation, physical illness, and mental health concerns in adulthood, including anxiety and depression.
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If you’re dealing with unresolved childhood trauma or feeling chronically stressed and want to learn how to rewire your brain for health and build resilience back into your life, then click the link in my bio for my books and courses ❤️.

Thank you for being part of our community ❤️ Content by @donnajacksonnakazawaauthor

The water, the tide, the light on the whitecaps ... these sights and smells restore me to myself. I grew up on the water and spent lazy childhood afternoons swimming, sailing, and rowing alone, exploring the coves and creeks of the Chesapeake Bay.
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In the winter we would ice skate out of our creek to the mouth of the South River where it met the wide-open Bay. Growing up as a "river rat" formed me and how I relate to nature and myself.
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Later, when, at the age of 12, trauma and tragedy struck my family, the flux of tide, the hum of life in the marshes beneath my feet, the small circle of creek life, the light on the whitecaps, the flight of blue herons and osprey overhead, offered a deep and eternal sense of maternal solace. Mother nature mothered me.
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Then, and now, nature saves my heart when little else will. When I'm away from the water for too long I hear a call in my cells to return. And so I do. Bay, lake, sea. I return. 🏖️
What is the return to nature that has, since childhood, called you home again?

As a journalist who’s spent more than a decade writing books on the science that shows our emotional experiences, including adversity, drive our mind-body health (Childhood Disrupted, The Angel and the Assassin, The Last Best Cure) I wanted to share with you a new study just out which underscores a hard truth we rarely talk about: psychological abuse is taken far less seriously than physical abuse — and yet it does the same harm.
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I’ve seen and heard this over and again from the 1000s of people I’ve interviewed, and from those who come to my online programs. Yet as a society we have a hard time grasping the severity of psychological abuse on well-being.
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To wit: in a recent study, when participants read scenarios about psychological abuse they rated it as less severe and worrisome than physical violence. Study researchers said: “We often focus on how dangerous physical violence is and forget or ignore how much people suffer in the face of psychological abuse. We are unable to convey psychological suffering in the same way.”
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Isolation from others, verbal aggression, micro threats, control, insults, are forms of psychological violence that are experienced by the victim as just as terrifying and harmful as hitting, kicking, or slapping. And psychological violence is often more frequent, constant, neverending.
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We have laws against physical abuse but there are rarely consequences for psychological abuse. Emotional abuse in families, between partners, from parent to child, at work, leaves just as long-lasting scars (though often unseen) as physical abuse, and yet as a society, we still don’t know how to address it and help victims to speak out and get the help and relief they need. https://bit.ly/3zBUKHB
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We can do better.
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If you’re dealing with unresolved childhood trauma or feeling chronically stressed and want to learn how to rewire your brain for health and build resilience back into your life, then click the link in my bio for my books and courses ❤️.

Thank you for being part of our community ❤️ Content by @donnajacksonnakazawaauthor