17 May
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Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal, January 21, 1838
US Transcendentalist author (1817 – 1862)
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Way back in 1838 happiness followed the same rules, stay present, live now and be happy.
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Let go of thought if you want to be the artificer of happiness in life.
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Reach out and find the joy beneath the surface of now.
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11 May
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As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found – in himself.
Erich Fromm
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Another famous quote extolling the virtues of searching for happiness, our true self everywhere but inside us.
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We choose happiness first, then live it, well PTSDers can and have chosen this path during healing.
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We can bring a smile, our happiness, our centeredness into every room we walk into.
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Happiness is more of a choice from within than any exterior money, possessions or power.
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Fulfillment is found inside us,
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Mindfulness/Meditation accomplishes this task,with daily practice.
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9 May
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Fear, described in neuroscience terms coincides with the dumping of cortisol, that big jolt in the chest. Also, the loss of fine motor skills, blood pumping to our extremities, and cognitive skills blurred along with tunnel vision.
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Life feels small, dangerous, even terror grips us with PTSD, as we look for a way to defend or escape.
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Those who grasp these triggers as real, bring super sized symptoms, hyper vigilance, avoidance, dissociation and paranoia. In this space, life has misery, sorrow and terror.
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Personally, dissociation and avoidance grew into agoraphobia, sentencing me to hide out inside my garage during the day. Leaving home seemed dangerous, filled with catastrophe and urgent reaction to flee.
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I tried to think my way out, discover what healed looked like, how it functioned. It goes back to neuroscience, what fires together wires together, spend time thinking, fearing, fleeing and suffer.
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Fear, was ruling my life, erecting barriers, walls of supposed protection which led to a narrowing of my existence.
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After I hit bottom, one way out was left, mindfulness and acceptance.
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Acceptance, true acceptance took time, penetrated my soul slowly because of the fear.
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Once, I accepted my fear and observed the mechanism, the sensations
in the body, a familiarity and calm entered my body, nervous system.
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I sat with my fear without grasping the story, day in, day out for a month. Fear became a friend, a complex mechanism inside my own body without the attributes of thought, discretion or intent.
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Fear was not scary after a while. My soul, true self or me did not react to triggers anymore. Then triggers lost their power over me.
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I was fine with my adrenal response mechanism firing, safe, calm, not needing to react or respond. C-PTSD had lost power and faded quickly.
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Daily work without goals, except maximum effort and focus.
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7 May
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Numerous ways to say , meditate and observe, listen intently for the sound of our breath.
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Slow the nervous system with focus on the breath, becoming one with the breath movement.
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The rise of the inhale, balanced by the purging exhale, connected by similar pauses.
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Let emotions exist on their own, arriving, staying a while, then fading from consciousness.
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A great practice, enabling us to focus our attention on now.
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The soul and true self may be the same?
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Quiet the mind, practice the breathing track, daily!
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Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice,practice!!!!!!
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1 May
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Changing ourselves happens when we go below the ego, observing thought and emotion from a distance.
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PTSD is here to stay until we change how we handle thought, fear, anger and resentment.
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We will be challenged, each of us in our own personal way in this life. This is not punishment but life itself and the trials along the way.
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We will experience loss, hardship and sadness, even grief in our lifetime. Accept all of this as a challenge, a learning experience, that all of us face.
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Changing the way we look at our challenges maybe the start of healing.
Changing from turning away, dissociating, or running to observing with our focus on the breath heals us.
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Life happens for real, only in this moment not the past or future.
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Practice staying present every moment and life drastically changes.
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30 Apr
Photobotos
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Yes, it is counterintuitive, our strength over PTSD comes with being vulnerable, open to observe our fear.
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Being strong, fighting trauma, trying to figure a way out, trying to manipulate or distract thoughts or even entertaining trauma thoughts empowers the disorder.
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What fires together wires together!!!!
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We heal by not grasping thoughts, not dissociating into the past, or giving any time for these thoughts to stay in our consciousness.
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We starve these wandering thoughts by focusing on the the breath, on now, instead of the gory details of childhood trauma.
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What we ignore, fades from lack of energy, attention, blood, and electricity.
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It is simple then, pull all attention from our trauma thoughts and they will fade, almost disappear in time.
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Try being vulnerable, accept these thoughts, observing from a distance, surrendering without resistance and healing arrives.
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Practice everyday, practice, practice, practice, practice.
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28 Apr
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We are not defined by the little girl being molested at ten or that little boy being physically and emotionally abused, but by how we live our life, our reaction to childhood trauma!
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No one ever told me that I had powerful skills waiting to be uncovered, that would help me be happier, stronger more compassionate.
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Healing was the ultimate goal in therapy, that is very limiting for all the opportunities available to expand life and living.
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When my childhood trauma was integrated, skills such as willpower, discipline and calmness arrived unexpectedly. When I let go of guilt and judging my life opened up with opportunity.
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I would not have found this path of mindfulness/meditation without the adversity C-PTSD brought to my doorstep.
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My PTSD was just a difficult learning experience, a self discovery journey. I know so much more about me, my mechanisms, how fear works as a friend, how emotions are small, tiny and elusive, how the breath calms everything and how I am perfect, right now, right here.
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Our journeys will never end till the day we depart this planet. We never arrive because all that exists opens in each moment, and then on to the next moment.
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Sometimes the moment is mundane, horrific or blissful, the trick is letting it exist on its own without our judgment.
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Limit judging yourself and grow as much as you can with daily effort.
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25 Apr
sea-galilee by Eugène Delacroix
Most of my reactions to trauma had fear as an underlying cause.
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Believing others criticizing me, had the power to damage my spirit or me, sprung from a fear of loss, then!
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Fear hides easily in the corridors of avoidance, dissociation and memories.
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Trauma fear, dies in the brilliance of awareness, of each moment. Pay attention, notice the fear hiding under our worries and doubt.
22 Apr
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Desires are not bad, evil or detrimental when we realize their impermanence in this life. Many desires, fulfilled and unfulfilled end up as loss. For instance a marriage, a glorious union with a mate ends in divorce so many times.
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Desires do not define who we are, loss as well, does not describe who we are.
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Desire and loss are impermanent, subject to change or collapse in the future. Therefore, with marriage, circumstances change along with desire, so divorce happens frequently.
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We desire shallow things also, approval, disapproval, status, importance, power, or control. These desires have no reflection on who we are.
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Attaining these desires sometimes depresses us, because happiness is no where to be found in the temporary satisfaction acquired.
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We waste life if our desires become to strong, dominate our consciousness or become habit. My life has changed drastically because my focus on the breath brings awareness to now, desires get pushed to the back burner without effort.
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I still have desires, spend time chasing them, but realize they are not permanent, not of great importance if happiness is my goal.
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Understand desires and the amount of appropriate time and interest involved. This is called balance, mind, body, soul.
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Sit quietly and sort out the permanent in your life. You will understand and experience happiness on this journey.
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Do the work and the rewards follow. Simple, concrete, and aware of only this moment, heals our trauma.
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Practice!!!!!!!!!!
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19 Apr
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Practice slowing the breath during a panic episode, observing anxiety as a spectator.
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I visualize this scene as thoughts, emotions, fear, etc at the end of my outstretched arms, at a good distance from our true self. This highlights their insignificance and impermanence.
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Emotions or emotional thought do not last, changes sometimes within minutes, and fades from consciousness. Observe an emotion from this distance and notice how small, fleeting they are. Observing thought from this distance allows us to see how powerless and insignificant without action.
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Integration happens quickest when PTSD is triggered and firing. This is the place where trauma is the scariest, strongest, however it is also at its weakest. Observe from a distance and healing is close behind.
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All other symptoms will disappear when we stop dissociating and integrate with our focus. It is simple, not easy.
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Let the fear alone, focus and slow the breath.
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Slow and quiet the breath and nervous system, our entire body as we engage our parasympathetic nervous system. Use neuroscience and meditation as a lethal force to heal and improve.
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