Prior to becoming a therapist, I believed as the majority of people still do, that trauma and subsequent PTSD are experienced by only a small portion of the population and limited primarily to combat soldiers and first responders such as firefighters, police and EMT’s; as well as residents of war-torn countries and victims of catastrophic events.
- By Betsy Chasse
Why is it that so many of us feel we need crisis in order to face our fears, to bring about the change we already know we need to undertake? After my last big crisis, I asked myself this question. It seemed my crisis meter had an alarm clock and every ten years I brought about a doozy.
Fear drives our impulses to forcibly control others, and to try and make the whole world behave as we want. Fear stimulates our mistrust of one another. It fosters close-mindedness, terror, judgment, bullying, frustration, and the awful destruction of human-on-human violence. Fear explains why...
I’m in a spiritual blackout right now, and it’s not pretty. Typically, I feel like I have an open line of conversation with spiritual guidance, and then the spiritual blackout comes along. Wham! Someone shuts a trapdoor overhead...
- By Jill Lublin
We are naturally geared for compassion, to share and bond and ease the pain and stress of others. There is room in business for compassion and you do not need to go to great lengths to begin spotting the opportunities for that type of connection.
If you sometimes experience anxiety that gets very intense, you may not be getting the help you deserve because you are ashamed of feeling anxious or having panic attacks. This is unfortunate because understanding what anxiety is and what triggers it can be a great help in demystifying and dealing sanely and appropriately with it.
It is hardly a new observation that political leaders seeking populist appeal will exacerbate popular fears: about immigrants, terrorists and the other.
- By Sarah McLean
When you are suffering in some way, it may seem easier to focus your attention anywhere but on the painful situation at hand. So you distract yourself. Distractions can include focusing on the future, working too hard, compulsively...
Reminders of death make people more likely to support killing animals, regardless of their existing attitudes about animal rights, according to new research.
When we believe whatever our story-telling brain fabricates, we are pushing our own buttons! As we listen to this sort of mind chatter, our survival alarm quickly escalates to higher levels of activation. Then our upset reactions seem completely justified!
When we think about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we most often think of soldiers traumatised by their experiences of war. But the statistics tell another story.
Imagine if we could completely trust that we are guided, protected and completely loved by an unseen higher power, that all that happens is a gift bringing us closer to God and our angels. I imagine that life would be peaceful and joyful.
People’s past, present and future are interconnected, and so is our country’s. Being willing to consider the connection between historical trauma and present-day experiences and distress is essential on a personal level
The most dominant destructive attitude of the twelve possible core attitudes is that our attention is in the past or future. This attitude is related to the emotion of fear.
In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle writes that people have only three options when they are presented with a situation that is intolerable: they can change the situation, walk away from it, or accept it.
Drinking to forget may make the fearful memories associated with post-traumatic stress disorder worse, not better, experiments with mice suggest.
As early as January, when David Bowie departed the scene, some were already looking dubiously at 2016. It began to feel like the end of an era. And when Brexit came in the summer, it was clear that in some ways it was.
Most of us have something we say we’re afraid of, whether it be spiders, needles, or something more unusual like zombies.
If you’ve only ever seen yourself as unsure and perhaps your self-esteem is not strong, you may be more vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed by fear—stressed by the worry that your pain might devolve into a worst case scenario of unknown proportions.
Today many fears seem woven into the very fabric of our society, such as fear of terrorism, fear of epidemics, fear of a bad economy, fear of commitment, and fear of losing a job, as well as fear of being separated from people we love, fear of loved ones dying, and the all-encompassing fear of the future...
He cautioned against leaders who capitalize on difficult situations to have us believe that our destiny and salvation lies in their hands.
- By Blake Bauer
When we allow our fears to drive our choices, the actions we do not take and the opportunities we allow to pass us by are symbolic of us rejecting the life we genuinely desire. Conversely, when we find the courage to face our fears directly...
Learning healthy ways—a collection of skills that researchers call resilience—to move through adversity can help us cope better and recover more quickly, or at least start heading in that direction.