This afternoon, John Stanton will be giving his and my talks about the Aboriginal child artists at The Kodja Place, Kojonup, {while I recuperate at home}. One of the aims of these talks is to highlight the legacy of the Carrolup Story, in relation to how it speaks to today about trauma, healing and resilience.
To celebrate John’s visit, I have provided links to 10 of my Healing Blog Posts that are particularly relevant to this magical story and to these key themes:
Addiction and Psychological Pain: Gabor Maté emphasises that it is critical to understand that although addiction is a problem it is also an attempt to solve a graver problem that is, unbearable psychic pain. To understand addiction we need to understand human pain and that takes us to focus on childhood experiences.
How Childhood Trauma Can Make You a Sick Adult: In this seven minute long video, Dr. Vincent Felitti, the co-founder of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, details the connection between childhood trauma and negative health outcomes in adulthood.
Relationships, Connection and Healing From Trauma: … recovery from trauma and neglect is also all about relationships—rebuilding trust, regaining confidence, returning to a sense of security and reconnecting to love… healing and recovery are impossible—even with the best medications and therapy in the world—without lasting connections to others.
The Important of Safety and Reciprocity in Mental Health: ‘Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health… The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart.
Aboriginal Healing Practices for Loss and Trauma: While these therapeutic practices may not at first seem “biological”: be assured that they are not only likely to change the brain, but they will assuredly provide the patterned, repetitive stimuli required to specifically influence and modify the impact of trauma, neglect, and maltreatment on key neural systems.
The Healing Power of Healthy Relationships: Where traumatised children are concerned, the last things we should be cutting from school schedules are the activities that can do precisely that: chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else that involves movement, play, and other forms of playful engagement.
‘Do Things With Us, Not To Us!’ Chris Sarra: If you stand beside me well intentioned, but in this relationship feeling sorry for me, as if I have to be rescued, the relationship is contaminated from the start, leaving us a few degrees out from each other and destined to become parted in the long run.
Without a Life Story: Bruce Perry: Story telling is a unique and permeating quality present in all cultures across every era. The first and universal function of narrative in song, ceremony and story is how we have come to be, where we are connected, where we belong, where the connections were broken, lost, repaired.
What is Healing, and How Does It Occur?: ‘The narratives demonstrate that healing at its most fundamental level is an ever-deepening knowledge, of the deep structure of the self and the layered and multiple parts of who the person is, at both biographical and transpersonal levels, culturally and spiritually.’
12 Principles of Indigenous Healing: By spreading healing messages in innovative ways and harnessing the considerable latent energy that exists at grassroots levels, we can create a ripple effect of hope and healing. Eventually, healing will become contagious, as has happened with other social movements. It can pass down generations, as has trauma.