Story Me Whole: Britt Collins, Mata/Tabor, Michael, and Me

Recently, like many people alive during these tumultuous times on our beautiful, fragile, resilient planet, I have felt the tug of despair.  So many of Earth’s family members are suffering because of extreme weather events and extreme human reactivity.  In this atmosphere of frightening instability, I’ve found it tempting to slump into the false belief of my impotence in the face of so many overwhelming challenges.  In these moments of fear and discouragement, I forget that I can reach out to others, offer prayers for those whose needs I recognize, or simply read or listen to something that reminds me we are as capable of offering kindness as we are of doing harm. In performing these small but restorative acts, I contribute to the Love, Joy, and Peace that are the antidotes to despair.

Continue reading Story Me Whole: Britt Collins, Mata/Tabor, Michael, and Me

Celebrating Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s long and wondrous life ended this week, on August 5, 2019. All of us alive today have been touched by her body of work whether we know it or not. For me, Toni shone as a woman in a man’s world, and more audaciously, as a black woman in that world. The literary canon still taught in many out-dated colleges and universities carries the heavy load of racial and cultural bias, skewing students’ beliefs about what makes literature great. Toni, along with many other women, outed that lie simply by writing.

As a literature student, always and forever – because story is the humanizing principle of our species – I will miss the anticipation of a new Toni Morrison offering. And I will revisit her literary children and watch the film Beloved again and again, for the heart and the soul of pain and healing it transmits through its cadences, its images, and the shocks and pleasures of its characters. So many women writing today carry on the deep soul work of our best writers. I am grateful for all of them, and especially for Toni Morrison, the woman who emerged from the literary mists of my young adulthood to assure me that the world of story, lasting, vital story, was not the exclusive property of dead white men.

Now I am on the hunt for the new documentary, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. Up in this neck of the very white woods that is northern Vermont, we have two theatres that will likely show it, The Savoy in Montpelier, and The Roxy in Burlington. I know I can watch it on one of the platforms available to us in our homes, but I don’t want to experience this last documented Toni-Morrison moment by myself. I want the public experience of sharing her with others who love and value her work as a writer, a way-shower, a guide back to deep justice, tenderness, and love.

Thank you, Toni, for every word, uttered and written. You are and always will be a light in the darkness of human folly and treachery. First at so many things, you will continue to shine through these dark times and we, all of us, will continue to be blessed by your shining.

EFT and Grief

Losing Ms Morrison is an immediate and sorrowful event for me. I want to feel all my feelings about her courage and her work and the considerable loss I feel at her passing. EFT is useful when grief will not shift on its own. It is not a deadening tool, but rather a relieving one. I have no need to tap on my grief at losing this giant of literature because feeling this grief is part of what makes me human.

If, however, her loss leads to an unshakable depression about the state of the world, then using EFT to release that dread and hopelessness will become a forward path. Just now, I feel nothing but the loss of a spiritual teacher. I want to feel how much I will miss Toni Morrison. Missing her will lead me to revisit her books and her interviews, and this revisiting process will enrich me further.

EFT is useful for chronic, relentless grief. What I and so many others are experiencing now is the healthy expression of mourning. This grief assures us we are alive to the pain and wonder of the world. This grief is a gift. It is at the heart of the human experience. Feeling this powerful emotion for the loss of Toni Morrison, one so bravely present to the world in all its beauty and horror, is a privilege.

Until next time,

Jane

Visit www.eftinternational.org to learn more about how the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) supports the resolution of inner and outer conflicts, informs more loving and respectful relationships, and empowers its users to contribute to the changes we want to see in the world.

Jane is an EFT International Accredited Master Trainer,  writer, coach, and educator specializing in neutralizing the long-term effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)  as well as the cultural limitations that interfere with our ability to imagine, create, and live the lives we desire.  To engage Jane for individual or group coaching services, EFT International(AAMET)  Accredited, Certified Mentoring sessions,  and EFT Level One and Two Training for your group, call Jane at  (802) 533-9277 or email   jane@winterblooms.net .  Visit www.winterblooms.net to learn more about how Jane supports and inspires individuals, groups, and communities.

Please Note:  This educational website cannot replace therapy with certified psychologists, family therapists, or psychiatrists.  Before training with EFT International, Jane taught at the elementary, secondary, and college levels, in Ontario, and at the Community College of Vermont. She is an early trauma survivor who works exclusively as a learning coach using the best practices of EFT as taught by EFT International.  She created this website to support the most effective use of EFT to reduce general and specific stresses and to increase the joy of daily living through self regulation and pro-social experiences.

Mary Oliver’s Many Gifts to Us


Visit www.winterblooms.net,  www.aamet.org and www.neftti.com to learn more about how the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) supports the resolution of inner and outer conflicts, informs more loving and respectful relationships, and empowers its users to contribute to the changes we want to see in the world.

Mary Jane Oliver, American poet, died on January 17, 2019. Although she will be greatly missed, her poetry remains to remind us of her gift for deep connection with the natural world. Arguments about her literary value may feed the appetite for constant critical analysis in the academy, but no one who has suffered childhood trauma and read Oliver’s work as an adult doubts her ability to see and express the human ability to heal through our connection with nature. Whether she intended to be or not, Mary Oliver is a poet especially relevant to those who suffer trauma at the hands of the humans in our lives.

Poetry, like life, gives us what we expect. If we expect erudition, cleverness, and cerebral workouts, Mary Oliver will disappoint. If we expect solace, delight, beauty, and coherence, her words flood us with the comforting sound of a mature voice expressing our deep hunger for, and discovery of, meaning. Because of the deeply rooted sensory nature of her work, it is no surprise that Oliver is one of America’s best selling poets. Many of us experience the pain of broken human relationship when we are young, our youth ensuring we have no words to describe what we are feeling. Bereft, we find love and caring where we can, sometimes with people who do not have our best interests at heart, sometimes with those so broken they forget connection, love, and kindness is the fuel we all require to become the people we were meant to be. And sometimes, we find home in the other-than-human world beyond our doorstep.

Mary Oliver is one of those rare poets whose images remind us we can reclaim our embodiment, even after the most severe trauma sends us deep into dissociation and lost identity. Moving through trauma means recognizing the site of the crime, marking out each violating act, and tenderly befriending whatever we had to do to feel safe. For many of us, safety is palpable when we are lying on the Earth looking up at the clouds, attending to the scents of mint or pine or salt water, or kneeling with reverence at the moment of some birth, death, or discovery we did not expect. The cry of wild geese, the heart-beat of waves, the drumming of woodpeckers, these sounds connect us to the pulsing mystery that sustains our lives. Humans may let us down, Mary Oliver reminds us, but the natural world never will. The natural expressions of life on earth knit us together with sight and sound and rhythm, these sensory foods nourishing body, heart, mind, and spirit.

As a survivor of early trauma, the most challenging aspects of my early life grew out of my inability to be present to the people in my world – family members, friends, teachers, and later, lovers and employers. Dissociation is a coping mechanism – a search for safety – most easily obscured by apparent compliance or its alter ego, rebelliousness. Traumatized children and adolescents are often called daydreamers, under-achievers, and even developmentally challenged. What we truly are is homeless, our sense of safety within the sanctuary of our bodies shattered by the traumas we’ve experienced. Mary Oliver, in her own pursuit of embodiment, has created an alchemy of re-connection, for herself, for those who read her.

Childhood trauma may leave us feeling permanently broken, alienated from others, adrift in a sea of sensation that feels constantly threatening and random.  Mary Oliver’s poetry offers a lifeline out of this sea.  As she looks and listens, as she expresses the joy, the surprise, the shock of life’s unfolding, her words have the power to coax us into our bodies – our personal expressions of sensory life – rhythmically, safely. 

Perhaps more than ever before, human disembodiment is encouraged and even rewarded by the mechanisms we have created to “connect.”  Our children are encouraged to study  STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects, this emphasis covertly teaching generations of children to devalue the arts as frivolous non-essentials that take time, attention, and resources away from research that increasingly preoccupies the minds of our best and brightest, but, sadly, neglects the hearts and souls that make us human.

  “Meanwhile, the world goes on.”  In “Wild Geese,” Mary Oliver reminds us of the “soft animal of our bodies,” of our need for the other-than-human coherence found beyond the failures of our human connections.  Her poetry forges pathways to seeing, hearing, and living this coherence, even after the worst has happened.

As an EFT practitioner, I have come to think of the work I do, personally, on my own traumas, and with clients, as a means of rediscovering the poetry of our lives, the safety of our own bodies, the joy of being in relationship with the forces supporting all of life on our fragile, lovely planet.  Mary Oliver has long been part of this rediscovery.  I mourn her passing.  And I celebrate her ongoing, healing presence in the beauty and healing she continues to foster in so many of us to through her poetry.

Jane

 

Jane is an EFT practitioner, trainer, writer, and educator specializing in neutralizing the long-term effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)  as well as the cultural limitations that interfere with our ability to imagine, create, and live the lives we desire.  To engage Jane for individual or group coaching services, AAMET (EFT International)  Accredited, Certified Mentoring sessions,  and EFT Level One and Two Training for your group, call Jane at  (802) 533-9277 or email jane@winterblooms.net .  Visit www.winterblooms.net to learn more about how Jane supports and inspires individuals, groups, and communities.

Please Note:  This is an educational website only and not meant to replace therapy with certified psychologists, family therapists, or psychiatrists.  Jane Buchan, MA, is an AAMET (EFT International) Master Trainer, long-time teacher at the elementary, secondary, and college levels, and early trauma survivor who works exclusively as a learning coach in the best practices of EFT.  She created this website to support the most effective use of EFT to reduce general and specific stresses and to increase the joy of daily living through self regulation and co-regulation.

To experience the benefits of EFT for in-the-moment, trauma-informed emotional support and to build emotional resilience over the long term, please reach out to Jane by phone at (802) 533-9277 or by email at jane@winterblooms.net.  In her coaching practice, Jane uses EFT and many other techniques to help individuals, groups, and communities resolve inner and outer conflicts and identify and achieve goals that will bring about desired positive changes.  This blog reflects her experience with EFT’s efficacy as a support for personal, community, and cultural transformation.



Judy Rebick, Early Childhood Trauma, and Telling Our Stories

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website created to support the most effective use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to reduce stress and increase joy.  To experience the benefits of EFT for in-the-moment, trauma-informed emotional support and to build emotional resilience over the long term, contact Jane by phone at (802) 533-9277 or email jane@winterblooms.net.

Visit www.winterblooms.net,  www.aamet.org and www.neftti.com to learn more about how EFT supports the resolution of inner and outer conflicts, informs more loving and respectful relationships, and empowers its users to contribute to the changes we want to see in the world.

If you are Canadian and a Boomer, or a feminist of any nationality, you know the name Judy Rebick.  She has been at the forefront of humanitarian causes since the 1970s, and her fearlessness as an advocate and activist is legendary.  She championed Dr. Henry Morgentaler and Dr. Robert Scott when The Morgentaler Clinic was under assault from extremists in the Right to Life movement.  She also advocated for deaf-culture individuals and agencies and for labour unions threatened by NAFTA.   The author of several books, her new memoir, Heroes in My Head, is a must read for anyone concerned with early childhood trauma, it’s long-term health and relationship effects, and its profound power to unleash the protective genius of a child experiencing assault.

Continue reading Judy Rebick, Early Childhood Trauma, and Telling Our Stories

Emotional Freedom Techniques, ACEs, and Loving Kindness

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website created to support the most effective use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to reduce stress and increase joy.  To experience the benefits of EFT for in-the-moment, trauma-informed emotional support, and to build emotional resilience over the long term, contact Jane (802) 533-9277 / jane@winterblooms.net.

Visit www.winterblooms.net,  www.aamet.org and www.neftti.com to learn more about how EFT supports the resolution of inner and outer conflicts, informs more loving and respectful relationships, and empowers its users to contribute to the changes we want to see in the world.

Bowing our heads to say a prayer for the world has fallen out of fashion, at least among the most vociferously expressive of our current-events chroniclers.  Sadly, in these times of emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual overload, the most common form of communication is the reactive rant.  Like a virus, the emotions of fear and grief fueling verbal assaults – those we see among leaders in news and those we see among family and friends and co-workers – cannot help but infect us, especially if we are working through the residual effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). Continue reading Emotional Freedom Techniques, ACEs, and Loving Kindness

Learn How to Tame Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Trauma

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website at www.aamet.org or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

On July 16th , 2017, in Markham, Ontario, I’ll be conducting what I think of as a graduate seminar in Self-Regulation and Resilience Building.  When we read about early and adult trauma, the emphasis is usually on its crippling effects.  At this event, however, our emphasis is on self regulation during potentially traumatic experiences and resilience building for the long-term.

Positive psychologists remind us of the gifts of trauma by using the phrase Post Traumatic Growth.  In our resilience seminar, an experiential event, we will focus almost exclusively on the benefits of trauma-informed approaches at home, in community, and in the workplace.  We will also practice several self-regulation and resilience building techniques to boost optimism regarding how we can become trauma-resilient regardless of our ACEs scores.

To augment the information and tools I teach at the in-person event, I’ve created a resource booklet that includes a history of the evolution of language we use about trauma, my own personal connection to ACEs, the value of trauma-informed approaches in diverse workplace situations – including the value of a trauma-informed approach for parents, information about two sources of self-regulation and resilience building tools, and an annotated resource section listing ACEs research sources and several non-ACEs sources that broaden our understanding of the cultural forces encouraging traumatizing practices and how we can ameliorate these.  If you cannot attend the Markham/Toronto, Ontario, event but would like the resource PDF, it will be available for $15.00 after the July 16th, 2017 event.  Email Jane at jane@winterblooms.net to request your copy.

To learn more about this event, please visit the National EFT Training Institute at  www.neftti.com.

with blessings for a self regulating and resilient building summer

Jane

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Jane Buchan, MA, AAMET Accredited Practitioner, jane@winterblooms.net, 802-533-9277

Jane is a Learning/Performance Coach specializing in neutralizing cultural age, gender, and race constructs to empower learners of every age.  To engage her coaching services, please contact Jane by phone (802) 533-9277 or email, jane@winterblooms.net.  Be sure to put Coaching Query in the subject line.

Self Care during Challenging Times

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the Gary Craig website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

With polarizing influences screeching in our ears like nails on a blackboard, it is easy to be caught up in the drama and forget to turn off our devices and sit in silence as we invite the natural rhythms of the world to bring us back to centre.  One of the most effective techniques for building resilience in the long term and self regulating in the moment is to step outside onto a grassy patch, focus on a tree, and simply offer our appreciation for its being present to us.  Resilience and self regulation are the secret to joyful longevity, loving and respectful relationships, and successful, sustainable business enterprises.  Tapping to clear all resistance to daily resilience and self regulation practices helps us to develop nourishing self-care practices that ensure positive experiences in the moment and positive experiences over time.

Continue reading Self Care during Challenging Times

ACEs, Paper Tigers, Resilience, and Thanksgiving

Please Note:  Winter Blooms is an educational website in no way meant to replace building a relationship with a trained EFT practitioner, counselor, or therapist.  To find an EFT Practitioner, visit the AAMET website, the Gary Craig website, the EFT Universe website, the Tapping Solution website, or contact Jane for EFT coaching support.

We are all, in one way or another, involved in the struggle to offer kindness, love, and understanding to ourselves and the larger world.  This is easy to forget in these media-saturated times where focus on the least admirable human traits influences almost every radio, television, and internet story line. My search for stories documenting human compassion and positive agency has led me to Adverse Childhood Experience studies (ACEs) which statistically document how early childhood trauma is a predictor of later chronic disease including autoimmune and mental health disorders.  But all is not lost, for coupled with these bleak health studies are numerous stories documenting the resurgence of resilience as even the most traumatized of children and adults relearn the magic of loving attention to the Self.

Continue reading ACEs, Paper Tigers, Resilience, and Thanksgiving