Trauma Training Tip Photo by Riccardo via Pexels The ancient Taoists were very clear. Health comes from aligning ourselves with the energy of the 5 seasons. We should use the energy of each season to support our health and expand our wellness. What does the Winter, the Water Element bring? How should we use it? These times call for us to bring forward the many phases of Water. Water can roar and move with a mighty force, like Niagara Falls or a tsunami. Water can find quiet, restful pauses, like a still pond. Water can always find a crevice to flow …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Nancy Ottevaere via Pexels It’s Fall. The time of the Metal Element, the “Awaken Arousal” phase of the Self-Protective Response – and the time for cultivating the critical capacity for curiosity over conclusions, and somatic mindfulness over cognitive judgment. Each of the 5 Elements, when nourished and flexible, offer us what I call critical capacities for living well in community. The Metal both “Awakens Arousal” in the Self-Protective Response, and when it is healthy and flexible, has the capacity to awaken us to new things in our environment with curiosity rather than a sense of threat. We …

Trauma Training Tip Jack Dykinga, USDA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons It’s Earth Time! The season for harvesting the sweetness of life. Have you had enough peaches yet? The Earth Element’s organs are the Stomach and the Spleen. The Earth’s gift in the Self-Protective Response is to “Digest the Gristle” (no matter how well we have navigated an experience of overwhelm, there is always some gristle that remains) and to “Harvest the Lessons” – ideally lessons that expand our life rather than contract it. We may need to break down our experiences into smaller bits and sort out what to …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Pixabay It’s summertime! The time of the Fire Element, the Heart, and the Ventral Vagus nerve. The soulful sages of ancient China teach us that living in harmony with the seasons is the way (the Tao) of health. In each season of the year, a resonant relationship of organs, emotions, tissues, and resources comes to the fore. In the Summer, it’s the Heart, and all matters of the Heart – and in the Tao of Trauma model, we could also say it’s the time of the Ventral Vagus nerve and the Heart Spirit. It couldn’t be a more …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Serje Lahoud via Pexels I’ve just completed teaching the 3 modules of the Fire Element – in Silver Spring, MD, Thousand Oaks, CA, and on-line. The most poignant theme? The powerful impact of shame on the heart. The dynamics between shame and guilt. The importance of bringing our shame into the light of day. The role of relationship in transforming shame. Here’s some of our exploration: Guilt and shame are about our social contract; they are a social experience and most importantly, repair of their impact occurs in the context of relationship. Shame focuses on a person, and …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Antonio Lorenzana Bermejo via Pexels We are moving out of the Spring/Wood phase of the Taoist agricultural cycle and into the Summer/Fire phase. All those flowers that came in spring are turning towards maturity and setting fruit. I see berries on the serviceberry trees and wee green figs on the fig tree. Perhaps you are seeing the flowers on your tomato plants turning into small green, hard fruits – portending sweet red juiciness in Late Summer? The ancient Taoists taught us to live in harmony with the seasons to find health. The Summer is the time …

Trauma Training Tip It’s hard to know exactly what to say these days, so I’m going to rest in the wisdom of nature. We are in the Wood season in Chinese medicine. It’s Spring. It reflects the mobilization response in the Self-Protective Response. It upholds the spiritual quality of benevolence. Wood energy is always there and available to protect and defend us from experiences of danger or life threat.  It seems those trees have so much to teach us about how to live. Many of us learned about “survival of the fittest” and that trees fight with each other for sunlight. It …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Елена Рудакова via Pexels Benevolence is the spiritual quality of the Wood Element and the Spring season. Consider the gifts trees offer – life-giving oxygen for two leggeds and four leggeds, homes for birds and bugs, and cooling shade for all of life. They offer these functions without effort or cost – they are simply expressions of their essential nature. They also absorb carbon from the air and store it in their tissues, reducing the impact of climate change. They are benevolent, indeed! Aligning ourselves with the season, and bringing somatic awareness to experiences of either …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Jan Kopřiva via Pexels February. Big month. Black History Month. Lunar New Year. Welcoming the Year of the Snake – a powerful symbol of transformation and change. And all those Executive Orders. There is some turbulence and there are some urges for mobilization in the air. Spring is emerging, and bringing nature’s Mobilization Response along with it! Lots of unknowns, some fear, some grief, some anger. We don’t know exactly what’s gonna be in our omelette – but we know there are some eggs getting cracked! These are turbulent times. Perhaps the most potent, most important …

Trauma Training Tip Photo by Chris F via Pexels Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.– JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit, 1937 I can safely say that we have a lot of Yang energy in our world – from the pending inauguration on the East coast to Fires on the West Coast of the U.S. as well as wars in the Middle East, Sudan, and Ukraine. …